He rolled over cautiously and found an edge to the mysterious surface
he had fallen to. He thrust his head over it and peered downward.
The rock dome was below him, not above! The space-beasts, who reacted
to gravity in reverse, had imposed their environment upon the city.
Only the solarium platform, which had been directly above where he had
been standing on the catwalk, had saved him from mashing against the
dome. He wondered if the Varan gunners had been able to hit any of the
borers under these conditions. He couldn't hear the buzzing sound--no,
wait, there was a single buzzing tone, seemingly far away. Well, two
down, anyhow.
A winged figure sailed by below him, its pinions tensely outspread,
gulling the air. He shouted at it, but there was no response. He
wondered what had happened to Atel. He must have fallen from the
catwalk, too, but certainly he couldn't have been hurt--he didn't
look like the type to pass out in mid-air. Andreson called again.
After a pause, an infinitely remote response came back to him:
_Atelatelteltellelellll_....
The echo of his first shout! The Varan must have forgotten about him
in the shock of the reversal, and flown off to his post, leaving the
Earthman stranded. Andreson knew it was quite possible that he had been
deliberately abandoned, but he forced himself not to think about it.
Right now, he had to get off this ledge, and back inside a building. A
preferable spot would be Atel's rooms; they were close, and there would
be only a short, harmless distance to fall either way, no matter what
the warring factions did with the city's gravity. Yet Atel's doorway,
so mockingly close, was in reality as good as miles away unless he
could figure out something nearly as good as flying!
Suppose he should wait where he was, and fall back to the catwalk when
the Varans succeeded in neutralizing the effect? He shuddered. The
catwalk was narrow and he might easily miss it. In any case, it might
take a long time--the space-beasts seemed to have the edge on the
Varans so far, and if they won, he'd starve here. He eyed the wall of
the building above him. It was about twenty feet "up" to the catwalk,
and no handholds were visible. The top side--now the "under" side--of
the solarium platform was no better; all the furniture had long since
fallen away, and even had it been still there, bolted to the surface,
he'd have thought twice before trying to crawl from couch to couch
toward Starstone Chamber's roof. It was a long way to the rock sky.
He risked standing up, hoping that the Varese would not choose this
instant to change things around again--if they did, he'd be dumped on
his head. The illusion of _downness_ was quite perfect, but it was hard
to forget that it was an illusion. His knees wobbled as if he were
standing on a pile of telephone books.
After steadying himself against the wall, he made a slow circuit of the
tower, stepping over the structural members of the platform cautiously.
No doorways here--even a flying people usually enter floors from the
top side. Returning, he eyed the upper edge of the catwalk doorway. It
was an eight-foot opening, and he was exactly six feet tall; that left
a margin of about six feet, which he might be able to jump. He wasn't
in very good shape, and the platform didn't offer much of a starting
run, but he'd have to chance it.
He backed gingerly to the edge of the platform, hunched, ran, leaped.
He struck the glassy wall at full length, and clawed frantically at it--
Missed. The drop back to the deck knocked the wind out of him again,
but he got up stubbornly. Crouch ... run ... leap--
* * * * *
His hands latched over the edge of the lintel and closed on it. Drawing
his knees up into his waist, he planted his toes and heaved. The first
push got his elbows over the edge, and after a long struggle he managed
to bend his body over it at the belt. Suspended, he looked dizzily
"down" at the inside of the Chamber, his feet dangling in thin air.
It was only an equivalent distance to the bottom side of the inner
solarium platform, but he didn't want to go that way. There'd be no
sense in rattling aimlessly about the roof of the hall, waiting for his
back to be broken across the seats. Somehow, he had to work himself
down to the catwalk.
There was no other way but to shinny along the side of the lintel.
He swapped ends, so that his legs were now in the Chamber, and took
off his shoes and socks with a good deal of difficulty. His feet were
sweating--indeed, he was wet all over--so he wiped them with the tops
of the socks; then he began precariously to inch himself upward.
By the time he made the bottom side of the catwalk, he was weak with
fear, and his clothes were soaked; but he couldn't allow himself any
time to recover, for there was now nothing "above" him but the chasm of
the city street. He worked his way across on his hands and knees--no
matter which way "down" was, this was a thin bridge for an earthbound
man, a bridge much more decorative than it was useful--and lowered
himself over the edge until he could curl his body around Atel's
doorway.
A moment later he was sprawled on Atel's ceiling, amid a litter of the
surly Varan's personal effects. He had hardly come to rest when he
fainted with a small sigh.
* * * * *
The second flipover of the city's gravity barely jounced him, but it
seemed to cause a lot of damage elsewhere. He had just gotten to his
feet when a terrific crash rang from the street below, and was followed
at once by others in other parts of the metropolis. He went to the
catwalk and looked over it--very tentatively, for he was warier than
ever of open spaces--but the distance was too great. He guessed that
something which hadn't been fastened down when the original reversal
took place had just made the return trip.
As he peered, four or five of the winged people stepped from a platform
far below his eyrie, and began to mount. Since they were between him
and the glowing side of the next building, he did not recognize Atel
and Jina among them until they were almost upon him.
As they settled gracefully on the catwalk, he noted with some surprise
that they were all armed with a glass-muzzled, pistol-like weapon
instead of the usual metal bar; and judging from their expressions,
they anticipated trouble.
"I see you weren't killed," Atel said grimly. He seemed a bit
disappointed.
"No. But I did a lot of dropping back and forth," Andreson returned
acidly. "Why the artillery?"
"These men are members of the Council Guard. They think you're a spy of
some sort. They suspect me, too, for forgetting about you during the
fighting."
"That's ridiculous!" Jina burst in, her breast pulsing hotly. "They
never thought of it until you suggested it!"
"We can't afford to run any risks."
"Who am I spying for?" Andreson demanded. "The beasts? Jina's right--it
is ridiculous."
"Yes, the beasts," one of the Guardsmen said flatly. "You're a native
of Earth, no matter what your Time, and so are they. You could easily
be the vanguard of a raid."
Andreson's temper was already short from the buffeting he had taken.
"There's not a shred of evidence for such a theory," he snapped.
"Unfortunately, there is," Atel purred. "We noticed a beast travelling
through the foundations of the city, just below the energy barrier, and
managed to trap it. We let it get up into a pillar and then energized
both ends. We were just about to kill it with hollow slugs when it
materialized--the first time the beasts have ever succeeded in doing
it, and it's an evil augury."
"Well? I still don't see...."
"_It was an Earthman._"
Andreson's mind nibbled around the edges of the fact. It was startling
enough in itself, but he could make little sense of it. How would an
Earthman have gotten into the reverse universe? And how at this Time in
the dim past?
"Perhaps it's another victim of the gallery," he suggested, frowning.
"It never occured to me before, but that infernal place might have been
set up deliberately as a time-trap--perhaps by the beasts!"
"Perhaps," the Guardsman said. "But we can see no purpose behind such
time-trapping, and Atel's interpretation makes better sense. Come along
with us."