* * * * *
It was just a hunch. Johnson knew that, but his hunches had often paid
off in the past, and now he waited with a big man's patience. For five
hours he sat in the wooden stands, under the rumpled canvas the
concessionaires had put up to protect the tourists from Marlock's
yellow sun.
The sun was hot and soon Johnson's clothing was marked with large
soiled patches of sweat. Now and then a light breeze blew across the
stands from the native section and at each breath his nostrils
crinkled in protest at the acrid smell.
Marlock wasn't much of a planet. Its one claim to fame was its
widely advertised Nature's Moebius Strip. For eighteen months of the
year--nine months of sub-zero cold, and nine months of sultry,
sand-driven summer--the only outsiders to visit the planet came to buy
its one export, the fur of the desert ox. But during the two months of
fall and two months of spring the tourists poured in to gape at the
Strip.
Idly, for the hundredth time, Johnson let his gaze run over the
tourists lining up for their "thrill" journey out onto the Strip. Most
of them wouldn't go far; they only wanted to be able to say they'd
been on it. They would build up some pretty exciting stories about it
by the time they returned home.
There was no sign of Johnson's man.
* * * * *
The party started out onto the Strip. At the first sensation of
giddiness women squealed and most of them turned back. Their men came
with them, secretly relieved at the excuse.
Johnson watched disinterestedly until only two remained: the young
couple he had designated in his mind as honeymooners. The girl had
grit. Perhaps more than the young fellow with her. He was affecting
bored bravado, laughing loudly as the girl hesitated, but white
streaks had appeared along his jawline and across his temples as he
waited his turn.
The young couple had gone far enough out now so that they were in the
first bend of the Strip's twisting dip. Already their bodies were
leaning sharply, as the mysterious gravity of the Strip held them
perpendicular with their pathway. From where he sat Johnson could read
nausea on their faces.
When they had followed the Strip around until they were leaning at a
35-degree angle, the girl seemed to lose her nerve. She stopped and
stood gripping the guide rope with both hands. The boy said something
to her, but she shook her head. He'd have to show his superiority now
by going on, but it wouldn't be for much farther, Johnson was willing
to wager.
The boy took three more steps and paused. Then his body bent in the
middle and he was sick. He'd had enough.
Both turned and hurried back. The crowd of tourists, watching or
waiting their turn, cheered. In a few minutes, Johnson knew, the kid
would be thinking of himself as a hero.
Suddenly Johnson straightened up, having spotted a new arrival, who
gripped a tan brief-case tightly under one arm, buying a ticket. He
had bulky shoulders and a black beard. Johnson's man had come.
When he saw the bearded man go out with the next bunch to brave the
Strip, Johnson rose and walked rapidly to the entrance. Elbowing his
way through, with a murmured apology, he joined the waiting group.
A thin-faced odd-job man opened the rope gate and they shuffled
through. The group must have walked fifty paces, with the bearded man
well up in front and Johnson somewhere in the middle, before Johnson's
stomach sent him its first warning of unrest. Most of those ahead had
stopped and Johnson threaded his way carefully past them.
Another twenty-five steps and he left the others behind. All except
the bearded man. He neither paused nor looked back.
Johnson's stomach had drawn up into a tight knot now, and his head was
beginning to feel light. There was a faint ringing in his ears.
By the time he reached the end of the guide rope, nausea was creeping
up from his stomach and into his throat. This was as far as it was
supposed to be safe to go; the advertising literature had it that here
was the point of no return. Up ahead his quarry was walking half
doubled over, weaving back and forth, as though he were intoxicated.
But he did not pause.
Johnson turned to look back, and felt his breakfast fighting to come
up. From his perspective, the ground and the spectators watching him
had swung to a position almost perpendicular to him. He felt that he
was about to slide off into space. A wave of vertigo swept over him,
his legs folded and he fell to the ground--sicker than he had ever
been before in his life. Now he knew why the man ahead never looked
back.
For a moment Johnson wondered whether he should give up. But, even as
he debated, tenacity pulled him to his feet and forced him on.
And now something new was added to his vast discomfort. Tiny twinges
of pain, like small electric shocks, began shooting up his legs,
increasing in intensity with each step he took. The pain built up
until the rusty taste of blood in his mouth told him that he had
bitten into the flesh of his lower lip.
Johnson's only consolation now was the thought that the man ahead of
him must be suffering worse than he. At each step the pain increased
its tempo, and the sound within his head grew to a battering roar.
Although he felt himself at the last frayed ends of his vitality, he
managed to stagger on.
Abruptly he realized that he had very nearly overtaken the man ahead.
Through eyes glazed with pain, he saw the other, still standing, but
swaying with agony and sickness. The man seemed to be gathering his
resources for some supreme effort.
He tottered ahead two more steps, threw himself forward--and
disappeared!
If he paused now, Johnson knew he would never be able to move again.
Only will power and momentum carried him on. He stumbled and pitched
forward. A searing pain traced a path through his head and he felt
himself falling.
* * * * *
He was certain that he had never lost consciousness. The ground came
up to meet him, and, with a last effort, he twisted his right shoulder
inward. His cheek slid along the dirt and he lay on his side without
strength. His legs pushed forward in a steady jerking movement as he
fought to quiet his quivering muscles.
Gradually a soothing lethargy bathed Johnson's body. His pains
vanished, and the sickness left his stomach.
But something was wrong--terribly wrong!
Slowly he climbed to his feet and stood looking about him. He was
still on the narrow arm of the Strip. On either side of him banks of
white clouds, with the consistency of thick smoke, billowed and curled
about the Strip--but somehow they left its pathway clear.
Johnson shook his head. The wrongness, he guessed, was in his own
mind. But he was unable to determine what it was. Desperately he
marshalled his scattered thoughts. Nothing. He took one groping step
in the direction from which he had come--and staggered back from a
wall of pain as tangible as a concrete structure.
He had no choice except to go forward. There was something he must do,
he realized, but what was it? With the question came the answer to
what was troubling him.
His memory was gone!
Or, at least, a great gap had been torn through it as though carved
out by a giant blade. Briefly, despair threatened to overwhelm him.
"Hold it!" Johnson spoke aloud, and the words sobered him.
All fears became worse when not looked at. He had to bring this
disaster out into the open where he could face it; where he could
assay the damage. He had always taken pride in having a logical mind,
with thought processes as clear and orderly as a bookkeeper's ledger.
Closing his eyes, he went swiftly over his recollections, placing each
in its appropriate column.
When he finished he found the balance extremely unfavorable, but not
hopeless. On the asset side he remembered: His name. Donald Johnson.
Right now he was on Nature's Moebius Strip, on the planet, Marlock.
There was some man he had been following.... The rest was on the
liability side of his balance sheet.
* * * * *
His name remained: All other memory of his own identity was gone.
There was no recollection of his reason for being on Marlock, or whom
he had been following or why. That left him little with which to work.
On the other hand, he mused, he might never be able to get off the
Strip, so that didn't matter much. He doubted his ability to stand the
stress of penetrating that electric curtain again. His body had been
able to take the punishment the first time because the force had built
up gradually. Going back would be something else again.
Still he planned his next actions methodically--only in that way could
he retain his sanity. He would go forward for one hour, he decided--he
checked his wrist watch and discovered it had run down--and, if he
found nothing, he would return and take his chances on getting through
the curtain.
At the end of ten minutes he sighted land ahead of him. When he
stepped off the Strip, he stopped in amazement!
Somehow the Strip had doubled back on itself, and he had returned to
his starting place!
To his right was the rough wooden viewing platform, with its green
umbrella gone. The stands were empty, and not a person--tourist or
concessionaire--was in sight.
As Johnson stood, perplexed, he became aware of numbness spreading
over his body. He brought up his hands and watched them slowly turn
blue with cold. He realized then, in a burst of wonder, that winter
had come to Marlock. Yet it had been spring when he had gone out on
the Strip!
* * * * *
"Good God, man!" the clerk exclaimed. "Have you been out in that cold
without a coat and hat? It must be thirty below."
Johnson was unable to answer. He had run from the Strip--luckily he
remembered its location in relation to the town--but it must have been
over a mile to the hotel. Now, as he stamped his feet and beat at his
sides with numbed hands, he breathed heavily, gasping great gulps of
air into his tortured lungs.
"Come and warm yourself," the clerk said, leading him over to a hot
water radiator.
Johnson made no protest. He let the heat penetrate until it scorched
the skin on his back. Only after the coldness left his body and was
replaced by a drowsy inertia did his attention return to the clerk.
"Did you ever see me before?" Johnson asked.