IV

Mooney dreamed miraculous dreams and not entirely because of the empty

bottle that had been full that afternoon. There never was a time,

never will be a time, like the future Mooney dreamed of--Mooney-owned,

houri-inhabited, a fair domain for a live-wire Emperor of the Eons....

He woke up with a splitting head.

Even a man from the future had to sleep, so Mooney had thought, and it

had been in his mind that, even this first night, it might pay to stay

awake a little longer than Harse, just in case it might then seem like

a good idea to--well, to bash him over the head and grab the bag. But

the whiskey had played him dirty and he had passed out--drunk, blind

drunk, or at least he hoped so. He hoped that he hadn't seen what he

thought he had seen _sober_.

He woke up and wondered what was wrong. Little tinkling ice spiders

were moving around him. He could hear their tiny crystal sounds and

feel their chill legs, so lightly, on him. It was still a dream--wasn't

it?

Or was he awake? The thing was, he couldn't tell. If he was awake, it

was the middle of the night, because there was no light whatever; and

besides, he didn't seem to be able to move.

Thought Mooney with anger and desperation: I'm dead. And: What a time

to die!

But second thoughts changed his mind; there was no heaven and no hell,

in all the theologies he had investigated, that included being walked

over by tiny spiders of ice. He _felt_ them. There was no doubt about

it.

It was Harse, of course--had to be. Whatever he was up to, Mooney

couldn't say, but as he lay there sweating cold sweat and feeling the

crawling little feet, he knew that it was something Harse had made

happen.

Little by little, he began to be able to see--not much, but enough to

see that there really was something crawling. Whatever the things were,

they had a faint, tenuous glow, like the face of a watch just before

dawn. He couldn't make out shapes, but he could tell the size--not much

bigger than a man's hand--and he could tell the number, and there were

dozens of them.

He couldn't turn his head, but on the walls, on his chest, on his face,

even on the ceiling, he could see faint moving patches of fox-fire

light.

* * * * *

He took a deep breath. "Harse!" he started to call; wake him up, make

him stop this! But he couldn't. He got no further than the first

huff of the aspirate when the scurrying cold feet were on his lips.

Something cold and damp lay across them and it stuck. Like spider silk,

but stronger--he couldn't speak, couldn't move his lips, though he

almost tore the flesh.

Oh, he could make a noise, all right. He started to do so, to snort and

hum through his nose. But Mooney was not slow of thought and he had a

sudden clear picture of that same cold ribbon crossing his nostrils,

and what would be the use of all of time's treasures then, when it was

no longer possible to breathe at all?

It was quite apparent that he was not to make a noise.

He had patience--the kind of patience that grows with a diet of

thrice-used tea bags and soggy crackers. He waited.

It wasn't the middle of the night after all, he perceived, though it

was still utterly dark except for the moving blobs. He could hear

sounds in the hotel corridor outside--faintly, though: the sound of a

vacuum cleaner, and it might have been a city block away; the tiniest

whisper of someone laughing.

He remembered one of his drunken fantasies of the night before--little

robot mice, or so they seemed, spinning a curtain across the window;

and he shuddered, because that had been no fantasy. The window was

curtained. And it was mid-morning, at the earliest, because the

chambermaids were cleaning the halls.

Why couldn't he move? He flexed the muscles of his arms and legs, but

nothing happened. He could feel the muscles straining, he could feel

his toes and fingers twitch, but he was restrained by what seemed a web

of Gulliver's cords....

There was a tap at the door. A pause, the scratching of a key, and the

room was flooded with light from the hall.

Out of the straining corner of his eye, Mooney saw a woman in a gray

cotton uniform, carrying fresh sheets, standing in the doorway, and her

mouth was hanging slack. No wonder, for in the light from the hall,

Mooney could see the room festooned with silver, with darting silvery

shapes moving about. Mooney himself wore a cocoon of silver, and on the

bed next to him, where Harse slept, there was a fantastic silver hood,

like the basketwork of a baby's bassinet, surrounding his head.

It was a fairyland scene and it lasted only a second. For Harse cried

out and leaped to his feet. Quick as an adder, he scooped up something

from the table beside his bed and gestured with it at the door. It

was, Mooney half perceived, the silvery, jointed thing he had used in

the truck; and he used it again.

Pale blue light streamed out.

It faded and the chambermaid, popping eyes and all, was gone.

* * * * *

It didn't hurt as much the second time.

Mooney finally attracted Harse's attention, and Harse, with a Masonic

pass over one of the little silvery things, set it to loosening and

removing the silver bonds. The things were like toy tanks with jointed

legs; as they spun the silver webs, they could also suck them in. In

moments, the webs that held Mooney down were gone.

He got up, aching in his tired muscles and his head, but this time the

panic that had filled him in the truck was gone. Well, one victim more

or less--what did it matter? And besides, he clung to the fact that

Harse had not exactly said the victims were dead.

So it didn't hurt as much the second time.

Mooney planned. He shut the door and sat on the edge of the bed. "Shut

up--you put us in a lousy fix and I have to think a way out of it,"

he rasped at Harse when Harse started to speak; and the man from the

future looked at him with opaque pale eyes, and silently opened one of

the flat canisters and began to eat.

"All right," said Mooney at last. "Harse, get rid of all this stuff."

"This. Stuff?"

"The stuff on the walls. What your little spiders have been spinning,

understand? Can't you get it off the walls?"

Harse leaned forward and touched the kit. The little spider-things that

had been aimlessly roving now began to digest what they had created, as

the ones that had held Mooney had already done. It was quick--Mooney

hoped it would be quick enough. There were over a dozen of the things,

more than Mooney would have believed the little kit could hold; and he

had seen no sign of them before.

The silvery silk on the walls, in aimless tracing, disappeared. The

thick silvery coat over the window disappeared. Harse's bassinet-hood

disappeared. A construction that haloed the door disappeared--and as

it dwindled, the noises from the corridor grew louder; some sort of

sound-absorbing contrivance, Mooney thought, wondering.

There was an elaborate silvery erector-set affair on the floor between

the beds; it whirled and spun silently and the little machines took it

apart again and swallowed it. Mooney had no notion of its purpose. When

it was gone, he could see no change, but Harse shuddered and shifted

his position uncomfortably.

"All right," said Mooney when everything was back in the kit. "Now you

just keep your mouth shut. I won't ask you to lie--they'll have enough

trouble understanding you if you tell the truth. Hear me?"

Harse merely stared, but that was good enough. Mooney put his hand on

the phone. He took a deep breath and held it until his head began to

tingle and his face turned red. Then he picked up the phone and, when

he spoke, there was authentic rage and distress in his voice.

"Operator," he snarled, "give me the manager. And hurry up--I want to

report a thief!"

* * * * *

When the manager had gone--along with the assistant manager, the

house detective and the ancient shrew-faced head housekeeper--Mooney

extracted a promise from Harse and left him. He carefully hung a "Do

Not Disturb" card from the doorknob, crossed his fingers and took the

elevator downstairs.

The fact seemed to be that Harse didn't care about _aboriginals_.

Mooney had arranged a system of taps on the door which, he thought,

Harse would abide by, so that Mooney could get back in. Just the same,

Mooney vowed to be extremely careful about how he opened that door.

Whatever the pale blue light was, Mooney wanted no part of it directed

at him.

The elevator operator greeted him respectfully--a part of the

management's policy of making amends, no doubt. Mooney returned the

greeting with a barely civil nod. Sure, it had worked; he'd told the

manager that he'd caught the chambermaid trying to steal something

valuable that belonged to that celebrated proprietor of valuable

secrets, Mr. Harse; the chambermaid had fled; how dared they employ a

person like that?

And he had made very sure that the manager and the house dick and all

the rest had plenty of opportunity to snoop apologetically in every

closet and under the beds, just so there would be no suspicion in

their minds that a dismembered chambermaid-torso was littering some

dark corner of the room. What could they do but accept the story? The

chambermaid wasn't there to defend herself, and though they might

wonder how she had got out of the hotel without being noticed, it was

their problem to figure it out, not Mooney's to explain it.

They had even been grateful when Mooney offered handsomely to refrain

from notifying the police.

"Lobby, sir," sang out the elevator operator, and Mooney stepped out,

nodded to the manager, stared down the house detective and walked out

into the street.

So far, so good.

Now that the animal necessities of clothes and food and a place to live

were taken care of, Mooney had a chance to operate. It was a field in

which he had always had a good deal of talent--the making of deals, the

locating of contacts, the arranging of transactions that were better

conducted in private.

And he had a good deal of business to transact. Harse had accepted

without question his statement that they would have to raise more money.

"Try heroin or Platinum?" he had suggested, and gone back to his

viewer.

"I will," Mooney assured him, and he did; he tried them both, and more

besides.

* * * * *

Not only was it good that he had such valuable commodities to vend, but

it was a useful item in his total of knowledge concerning Harse that

the man from the future seemed to have no idea of the value of money in

the 20th Century, _chez_ U.S.A.

Mooney found a buyer for the drugs; and there was a few thousand

dollars there, which helped, for although the quantity was not large,

the drugs were chemically pure. He found a fence to handle the

jewels and precious metals; and he unloaded all the ones of moderate

value--not the other diamond, not the rubies, not the star sapphire.

He arranged to keep those without mentioning it to Harse. No point in

selling them now, not when they had several thousand dollars above any

conceivable expenses, not when some future date would do as well, just

in case Harse should get away with the balance of the kit.

Having concluded his business, Mooney undertook a brief but expensive

shopping tour of his own and found a reasonably satisfactory place to

eat. After a pleasantly stimulating cocktail and the best meal he had

had in some years--doubly good, for there was no reek from Harse's

nauseating concoctions to spoil it--he called for coffee, for brandy,

for the day's papers.

The disappearance of the truck driver made hardly a ripple. There were

a couple of stories, but small and far in the back--amnesia, said one;

an underworld kidnaping, suggested another; but the story had nothing

to feed on and it would die.

Good enough, thought Mooney, waving for another glass of that enjoyable

brandy; and then he turned back to the front page and saw his own face.

There was the hotel lobby of the previous day, and a pillar of churning

black smoke that Mooney knew was Harse, and there in the background,

mouth agape, expression worried, was Howard Mooney himself.

He read it all very, very carefully.

Well, he thought, at least they didn't get our names. The story was all

about the Loyal and Beneficent Order of Exalted Eagles, and the only

reference to the picture was a brief line about a disturbance outside

the meeting hall. Nonetheless, the second glass of brandy tasted

nowhere near as good as the first.

* * * * *

Time passed. Mooney found a man who explained what was meant by the

Vale of Cashmere. In Brooklyn, there is a very large park--the name is

Prospect Park--and in it is a little planted valley, with a brook and

a pool; and the name of it on the maps of Prospect Park is the Vale of

Cashmere. Mooney sent out for a map, memorized it; and that was that.

However, Mooney didn't really want to go to the Vale of Cashmere with

Harse. What he wanted was that survival kit. Wonders kept popping out

of it, and each day's supply made Mooney covet the huger store that

was still inside. There had been, he guessed, something like a hundred

separate items that had somehow come out of that tiny box. There

simply was no room for them all; but that was not a matter that Mooney

concerned himself with. They were there, possible or not, because he

had seen them.

Mooney laid traps.

The trouble was that Harse did not care for conversation. He spent

endless hours with his film viewer, and when he said anything at all

to Mooney, it was to complain. All he wanted was to exist for four

days--nothing else.

Mooney laid conversational traps, tried to draw him out, and there was

no luck. Harse would turn his blank, pale stare on him, and refuse to

be drawn.

At night, however hard Mooney tried, Harse was always awake past him;

and in his sleep, always and always, the little metal guardians

strapped Mooney tight. Survival kit? But how did the little metal

things know that Mooney was a threat?

It was maddening and time was passing. There were four days, then only

three, then only two. Mooney made arrangements of his own.

He found two girls--lovely girls, the best that money could buy, and

he brought them to the suite with a wink and a snigger. "A little

relaxation, eh, Harse? The red-haired one is named Ginger and she's

partial to men with light-colored eyes."

Ginger smiled a rehearsed and lovely smile. "I certainly _am_, Mr.

Harse. Say, want to dance?"

But it came to nothing, though the house detective knocked

deferentially on the door to ask if they could be a little more quiet,

please. It wasn't the sound of celebration that the neighbors were

objecting to. It was the shrill, violent noise of Harse's laughter.

First he had seemed not to understand, and then he looked as astonished

as Mooney had ever seen him. And then the laughter.

Girls didn't work. Mooney got rid of the girls.

All right, Mooney was a man of infinite resource and sagacity--hadn't

he proved that many a time? He excused himself to Harse, made sure his

fat new pigskin wallet was in his pocket, and took a cab to a place on

Brooklyn's waterfront where cabs seldom go. The bartender had arms like

beer kegs and a blue chin.

"Beer," said Mooney, and made sure he paid for it with a twenty-dollar

bill--thumbing through a thick wad of fifties and hundreds to find the

smallest. He retired to a booth and nursed his beer.

After about ten minutes, a man stood beside him, blue-chinned and

muscular enough to be the bartender's brother--which, Mooney found, he

was.

"Well," said Mooney, "it took you long enough. Sit down. You don't have

to roll me; you can earn this."

Girls didn't work? Okay, if not girls, then try boys ... well, not boys

exactly. Hoodlums. Try hoodlums and see what Harse might do against the

toughest inhabitants of the area around the Gowanus Canal.

* * * * *

Harse, sloshing heedlessly through melted snow, spattering Mooney,

grumbled: "I do not see why we. Must? Wander endlessly across the face

of this wretched slum."

Mooney said soothingly: "We have to make _sure_, Harse. We have to be

sure it's the right place."

"Huff," said Harse, but he went along. They were in Prospect Park and

it was nearly dark.

"Hey, look," said Mooney desperately, "look at those kids on sleds!"

Harse glanced angrily at the kids on sleds and even more angrily at

Mooney. Still, he wasn't refusing to come and that was something. It

had been possible that Harse would sit tight in the hotel room and it

had taken all of the persuasive powers Mooney prided himself on to get

him out. But Mooney was able to paint a horrible picture of getting

to the wrong place, missing the Nexus Point, seventeen long years of

waiting for the next one.

They crossed the Sheep Meadow, crossed the walk, crossed an old covered

bridge; and they were at the head of a flight of shallow steps.

"The Vale of Cashmere!" cried Mooney, as though he were announcing a

miracle.

Harse said nothing.

Mooney licked his lips, glancing at the kit Harse carried under an arm,

glancing around. No one was in sight.