She bent to make a brief, repelled examination of Mulvaney. "Can't
something be done for this man?"
"There isn't any hope for him," Bryan returned. "He's in the same
condition as the others." He studied Joyce for a moment, realizing that
she was oddly changed--somehow deliberate, hostile. "What are you doing
here?"
"I wanted to see what your girl-friend looked like, Terry. I sneaked
past the police in front of the park." Her voice took on a sudden
accusing edge. "I saw what that half-naked witch did to this policeman.
And you helped her, Terry. I saw you knock him down so he couldn't
shoot her. It was murder, Terry--murder! He isn't dead yet, but you
know he's going to be."
"I had to stop him," Bryan protested. "The girl deserved more of a
chance than she was getting. I told you she really didn't know she was
doing wrong. I thought I could reason with her, keep her from doing
any more harm--but things happened too fast."
Joyce shook her head coldly. "It's still murder. And you're in it up
to your eyebrows, Terry. If the police find out what happened here,
they'll lock you up and throw away the key."
In another moment her features softened, her voice grew pleading. "It
isn't too late, Terry. Forget that girl. Tip off the police so they'll
be ready for her the next time she shows up. They don't have to know
exactly what you saw--or what you did. We'll keep that to ourselves,
Terry. We'll start over again ... you and I."
* * * * *
Bryan stared at her, shocked by the bargain she was suggesting. She
was asking him to doom Leeta, to sacrifice his pride and his hopes in
return for her silence. It was a kind of blackmail, in which she was
seeking to use the tragedy of Mulvaney for her own purposes. He found
in this a wrong somehow vastly greater than in what Leeta had done--for
this was knowing, calculating.
He had always regarded Joyce as a friend, understanding and
sympathetic. Now he realized these qualities were only a veneer, and
in the stress of what had happened the veneer had been stripped away.
An underlying ugliness was revealed--an ugliness that seemed to be the
very foundation of a world he had come to despise.
Slowly, grimly, he shook his head. "You're asking too much for what
you have to sell, Joyce. If I have to pick between you and Leeta,
then...."
She stiffened as though struck. "Leeta!" she spat. "So you know
her name, do you? Now I see you must have been cozy with her all
along--that's why you helped her commit murder!"
Her voice grew shrill and breathless with fury. "All right, Terry!
You're asking for it. I've made a fool of myself in front of everyone,
chasing after you, throwing myself at you. This is where I even up the
score.... The police might not believe what I just saw, but I'll tell
them a story they'll swallow without tasting. They just love people
who help kill cops. And they already have a crush on you over the
run-around you gave them after the last killing. If you aren't sent
to the chair, you're dead certain to get a job cracking shells in a
nuthouse. Everybody knows you've been going to pieces, and they won't
be surprised to hear you've finally blown your top."
She stood facing him a moment longer, her eyes blazing with deadly
promise. Then she whirled and was running swiftly toward one of the
paths that led away from the pavilion.
Bryan gazed after her, realizing that he might have made a serious
mistake. But he was somehow unable to care. He had an enormous sense of
futility, defeat. All his hopes, the very course of his life, had come
to center about this evening's meeting with Leeta--and she had slipped
from him. There would not be another chance. Joyce had made it clear
that the sands of time were running out for him.
He glanced down at the prone figure of Mulvaney, hesitated. It seemed
callous to leave the patrolman like this. But there was nothing
that could be done for Mulvaney now. Except, perhaps, to answer the
questions of the police about what had happened to him. And Bryan
didn't feel like answering questions. He'd had little sleep that
morning, and exhaustion made his body leaden. And he had the feverish,
light-headed feeling again, the aftermath of his paralysis.
He turned aimlessly and walked down one of the paths, until he found
himself at the edge of an invitingly dark grassy expanse. He dropped to
the ground behind some tall bushes and closed his eyes. He seemed to
be floating in a lightless, depthless sea. Soothing waves of sensation
washed over him. He drifted away on warm tides that held nothing of
sound or feeling.
* * * * *
And then the nothingness was gone. He stood on a flagstone path that
ran between a lane of trees. At one end the path led to a curving
stairway that wound up a rocky slope to a building of pink stone.
Peace and quiet lay over the scene, like a crystal blanket of supernal
clarity.
Realization came to him, bringing with it an electrifying amazement.
He was back--back in that strange and exotically beautiful other-place
which seemed to be Leeta's home!
Leeta! Eagerness and wild joy flamed in him, then. There was still a
chance. It was not hopeless after all--not too late....
His senses rushed toward the other end of the path, and now he detected
a muted piping, like the shrill whispers of excited children. He sent
himself toward it.
The familiar shifting again. He stood at the edge of the broad shallow
depression he had seen before, with the pool of inexplicable force at
its center. The flowers that crowded here were as incredibly luxuriant
and gorgeous as he remembered them, filling the air with their thick
perfume. And once more he felt the aura of vital power that radiated
from the pool, boundless, awesome, god-like.
And kneeling beside the pool as before was the slender figure he was
seeking--Leeta. Only dimly was he aware of the other shapes around
her, the giant bird, the mosquito-men. She was holding the mystically
shining crystal globe, even now she was bending to lower it to the
surface of the pool.
Into his mind flashed the chilling picture of Mulvaney, horribly
sprawled, motionless-empty. He knew he had to prevent what was about to
take place.
Urgency leaping in him, he sent himself toward the pool. Leeta had to
see him this time! He threw all his will into the thought in a mighty
burst of effort. She had to see him!
And she saw him.
With the globe extended in her hands, she stiffened. Her tilted liquid
eyes flared wide. A stark unbelieving amazement seemed to grip her slim
body. And in a fashion that was somehow a normal function of his senses
here, he realized that she saw him as he had seen her back at the park,
mistily unsubstantial, weirdly glowing.
"You!" she said at last. The silvery chime of her thought held the
quality of a gasp.
Her stunned incredulity was echoed by the other presences before the
pool.
"He is the strange one--he is here!"
"He of the great will has come!"
Then the silvery chiming again, stronger now. "You followed me here,
man of the other aspect? Were you able so easily to penetrate the veil?"
"I don't know just how I got here," Bryan returned. "But I do know that
this is where I wanted to be."
She seemed to grasp the implications of the thought, for a sudden
delight stirred in her. Yet for the moment her wonder remained
dominant. "I do not understand how this can be. The others could not
penetrate the veil without the aid of the Vessel. It is as though they
were somehow bound to their aspect of existence--bound as you, man of
the mighty will, are not.... But why have you come?"
His answer was grave, deliberate. "Partly to ask you to stop the harm
you have been causing in my world, Leeta."
"Harm?" A silvery peal of shock burst from her. "I ... I do not
understand."
"You took something from those men in my world, Leeta--something they
could not live without. And because of this, they died."
"Died! But the pool could not incarnate them into this aspect. The
vital force escaped. I thought it returned to its shell in the other
aspect."
Bryan clearly understood the meaning behind the terms she used. He
shook his head. "The vital force did not return--not once, Leeta. The
shells died."
She looked stricken. "I had not thought that happened when the vital
force escaped. I had been certain that it returned through the veil,
drawn back by its bonds with the shell.... If it did not return,
then it must have perished here." The realization was one she found
startling, dismaying.
Bryan nodded slowly. "It perished in this aspect, just as the energy
projection of one of your winged creatures perished in mine. For I
assume that the creature did perish, Leeta."
"Yes," she whispered. "It was a thing I did not understand. But
now...." Her thought faded unhappily. Sorrow misted her eyes.
* * * * *
He dropped down beside her at the edge of the pool. For the moment,
driven by his intense purpose, he forgot that he was somehow
immaterial, a projection. He forgot the strangeness of that bizarre
other-world garden and the tensely watching shapes nearby. There was
only Leeta and himself. That was all that mattered.
Earnestness heavily underscored his thought. "Leeta, you must stop what
you have been doing. You know now it has caused the deaths of those men
in my world. And there is another reason, Leeta--danger. My people will
be watching for you to appear again. They will try to destroy you."
She shook her head with a mournful determination. "But I cannot
stop. I have a duty to fulfill that is greater than any harm I might
cause--greater even than my own life."
"What do you mean, Leeta? What is this duty?"
"I shall tell you. But first--you have seen something of this valley?
You have seen that it is beautiful?"
"Very beautiful, Leeta."
"But only the valley is like that. All the rest of my world is bathed
in a terrible fire that destroys any life it touches."
"I have seen that, too," he said. "Was it always this way?"
"Not always. Once the entire world was like the valley, beautiful,
filled with life. There were fully as many people as on your own world.
And they had great knowledge--too much knowledge, perhaps. They lived
in vast cities and had many wonderful machines to serve them. They
could have been happy, could have climbed to even greater heights--but
there was war."
The silver chiming was dulled by sadness, and a kind of instinctive
horror. "It was a war fought with weapons of frightful, magic
power--weapons that used the very secrets of existence itself. Life of
all forms was wiped out, except in this valley. For a small group of
people had guessed what the war would do and had taken refuge here.
The valley, you see, was unique, not only well isolated from any
possibility of attack, but shielded on all sides by mountains which
contained an element capable of resisting the fire. Thus, while the
fire spread like a deadly blight into other refuges, it did not reach
here. Not entirely."
Bryan felt an awed wonder at the picture Leeta had drawn. Behind
her chiming thought images had moved--images that seemed to hold a
tantalizing familiarity. He had been puzzling over the location of
Leeta's world, and now he speculated startledly whether it wasn't Earth
itself. He recalled that she had spoken of their individual worlds as
aspects, as though they were different views of the same place rather
than completely different and unrelated places.
The possibility was supported by the fact that Leeta was undeniably
human. Further, he knew that the consuming fire she described was
radioactivity--and the people of his world were already well along in
their knowledge of atomic weapons. His wonder sharpened. Was Leeta's
world actually Earth--an Earth of the distant future? Was the veil that
separated them time itself?
* * * * *
She appeared not to have noticed his fleeting thoughts. It was as
though her awareness was gripped by the tragedy of what she had been
describing.
Slowly she went on, "The fire's terrible breath touched the valley,
and its effects were felt by the creatures who had sought shelter
here--both human and animal. Some died, some ... changed. The winged
ones you see around you now are the results of that change. Even the
flowers and trees became different. And the pool was created. The fire
touched something in this particular spot--and the pool came into
being. The process was never understood, but I do know that the pool
has strange powers--that somehow it is alive ... intelligent. It is the
pool which made possible what I have done, supplying the knowledge,
tools and forces that were necessary."
"But how does it happen that you're the only person left in the
valley?" Bryan asked.
She moved her slim, gleaming shoulders. "There were not many here even
in the beginning, while the fire was still at its height. After its
destroying breath left the valley, only a very few were left--those,
that is, who were still human. And they somehow did not care to live.
My father was the last to die, but before he did he said I must find a
way to keep our race from perishing with me. He explained that I was
the first human truly adjusted to the changed conditions of the valley,
and only in me was there hope.
"That was ... and remains ... my duty--to keep humans alive in this
aspect. The answer to my problem lay beyond the veil. Matter was held
by the energy field of the aspect in which it was situated, and thus
could not be made to cross without the use of enormous power. But the
vital force contained in living matter could be made to cross easily
enough--with, of course, the means of a tool like the Vessel. And the
pool could incarnate the vital force, give it matter in this aspect
according to the pattern of the original shell. All I had to do was
bring the vital force of a man through the veil--and my race could go
on. Still, I have been unsuccessful, for it seems that the vital force
is also held to its aspect."
"I think that's because of what might be called psychic bonds," Bryan
said slowly. "The men you brought here, Leeta--they did not want to
come. And once here they did not want to stay. That, it seems, is why
you've failed."
He indicated the globe she was holding. "And that's why you'll fail
again. It's wrong to destroy a life uselessly, Leeta. Wrong. Surely you
realize that. You must release this man--if it's at all possible."
"It can be done," she said. Then her thought grew protesting,
rebellious. "But I cannot release him. I cannot give up my mission so
easily. I must keep trying until I succeed. Surely you in turn must
realize how great my duty is."
"Will you persist in it even if you know you are doing wrong, bringing
pain and grief to people in my aspect? Don't you know what grief is,
Leeta? Didn't you feel grief when your father died--when that winged
creature of yours died?"
"Yes," she said reluctantly. "Yes."
"And don't you know what love is? Haven't you realized that you were
tearing those men away from persons they loved deeply and didn't want
to leave? I don't mean the kind of love you felt for your father,
Leeta, but the love that exists between a man and a woman who are
mated. Don't you know what that kind of love is like?"
* * * * *
She hesitated, startled, wondering. "No," she breathed at last.
"Then I'll show you," he said. Though he was somehow unsubstantial,
a projection, he knew he could still transmit feeling, just as the
mosquito-men had transmitted their paralysis to him. He bent toward
her, pressed his lips to hers. He felt her surprise--and then her
pleasure, her shy response. There was somehow a sweetness in that kiss,
an intensity, that moved him as no kiss had ever done.
Finally he drew away. "That is love, Leeta--something that would bring
a man willingly to your aspect."
Her small face was flushed, her liquid eyes shone. Then despair washed
over her. "But if you don't--" She gestured helplessly. "Where would
I find a man in whom there would be such a love?"
He looked at her intently, searchingly, then gestured at the globe.
"Leeta, if I were willing to stay here with you, would you release this
man?"
"For you--yes." In her was no guile, only an innocent directness. "I
have thought of you from the first moment we met," she admitted. "I
found qualities in you that were not present in any of the others--a
strength, and yet a gentleness, a sadness. I could not forget ... and
I know now that this was love. And if you will truly stay--" She broke
off eagerly. "Watch!"
She extended the globe toward the pool. She did not lower it, but held
it over the surface. Her slim body grew very still. She seemed to be
concentrating ... communing.
And as he watched, Bryan saw the mists from the pool thicken around the
globe. The supernal power that radiated from it took on an atmosphere
of tension, strain. For an instant, even though he still saw her, he
had the uncanny yet definite impression that the globe was--gone.
Abruptly, then, dismayingly, the scene dimmed, began fading, as it
had done on his first visit. Panic swept him. He couldn't leave
now--he didn't want to leave! He fought to keep the garden around him,
summoning all the force of will of which he was capable.
The scene steadied--but remained oddly blurred. He saw now that Leeta
had turned from the pool and was holding out the globe to him, smiling.
The globe's mystic brightness was gone. Once more it was a cloudy gray,
its core a faint rose, slowly pulsing.
"It is done," Leeta said. "He has been returned safely to the other
aspect." Then her smile vanished. She stared at Bryan in swift concern.
"Why, what is the matter? What has happened to you?"
Her questions seemed to come from a great distance. The scene was
dissolving again--and this time he could not hold it together.
Something was wrong, he knew, seriously wrong. He tried to send a last
message to Leeta ... failed.
Darkness closed around him. And from a distance even greater than
before, he sensed an anguished chiming, stunned, broken.
"A trick! It was just a trick!"
* * * * *
Someone was shaking his shoulder roughly and insistently. He strained
away in dull protest, groping blindly for the fragile ethereal thread
that had slipped from him.
"Come on, snap out of it!" an impatient voice growled.
He forced open his eyes, then squeezed them shut again as the beam of
a flashlight struck them. His awareness sharpened. He struggled to sit
up, felt grass under his fingers, and realized abruptly that he was
back in the park.
Hands that were not gentle caught him under his armpits and helped
raise him to his feet. He saw the figures of two men now, one of them
in police uniform. This man held a gun, its muzzle pointed in silent
threat.
"All right, cop-killer," the man in the suit said. He had a detective's
unemotional face and flat hard eyes. Something bright glinted in his
hands as he leaned close--and Bryan felt the cold steel of handcuffs
close around his wrists.
"Let's go," the detective said, then. "We've got about two-dozen men
combing the park for you, friend. They won't like to be kept on the job
for nothing. Pete and I were just lucky enough to get to you first."
Rough hands gripped Bryan's arms, pulled him into motion. He walked
leadenly, unsteadily, the two men flanking him. His body was clammy
with the perspiration that had bathed him in sleep. He felt exhausted,
weak, sick, as though from some tremendous labor. The energy of his
body, it seemed, had been heavily drawn upon in order to sustain the
projection of himself in Leeta's aspect.
Leeta.... He thought of her with a crushing sense of tragedy. He knew
he loved her--incredible and weird as that love may have seemed. He
remembered the shyness of her kiss, the numbed horror of her belief
that she had been betrayed, that he had pretended love only as a ruse
to obtain Mulvaney's freedom. If only he were able to reassure her--
But he had the chill certainty that he would never see her again. For
she had learned the meaning of pain.
Despair rose in him, a despair that submerged even his concern over
the situation in which he now found himself. _Cop-killer_.... The
implications brought a kind of remote wonder. Joyce, it appeared, had
made her threat good. She had told the police a story that they had
swallowed without tasting. It was a story that had resulted in a swift
and thorough search of the park, a story that had required handcuffs
and drawn guns.
Bryan glanced at the detective beside him. "You boys taking me in
because of what happened to Mulvaney?"
"Mostly because of Mulvaney," the other grunted. "We don't know what
you did to him, friend--but you're going to tell us about it. In the
back room at Headquarters. You're damned well going to tell us all
about it."
"Mulvaney isn't dead," Bryan insisted.
"Not yet. But he's going to kick off sooner or later--just like the
others. I know about that, friend."