Bram's eyes opened. For a moment he looked dazedly at Tremaine, then
at Miss Carroll. Awkwardly he pushed himself to a sitting position.
"Bram ... you must lie down," Miss Carroll said.
"Linda Carroll," Bram said. His voice was deep, husky.
"Bram, you're hurt ..."
A mewling wail started up. Bram went rigid "What hour is this?" he
grated.
"The sun has just gone down; it's after seven--"
Bram tried to get to his feet. "Help me up," he ordered. "Curse the
weakness...."
Tremaine got a hand under the old man's arm. "Careful, Bram," he said.
"Don't start your wound bleeding again."
"To the Repellor," Bram muttered. Tremaine guided him to the rocking
chair, eased him down. Bram seized the two black pistol-grips, squeezed
them.
"You, young man," Bram said. "Take the circlet there; place it about my
neck."
* * * * *
The flat-metal ring hung from a wire loop. Tremaine fitted it over
Bram's head. It settled snugly over his shoulders, a flange at the back
against his neck.
"Bram," Tremaine said. "What's this all about?"
"Watch the wall there. My sight grows dim. Tell me what you see."
"It looks like shadows: but what's casting them?"
"Can you discern details?"
"No. It's like somebody waggling their fingers in front of a slide
projector."
"The radiation from the star is yet too harsh," Bram muttered. "But now
the node draws close. May the High Gods guide my hand!"
A howl rang out, a raw blast of sound. Bram tensed. "What do you see?"
he demanded.
"The outlines are sharper. There seem to be other shapes behind the
moving ones. It's like looking through a steamy window...." Beyond the
misty surface Tremaine seemed to see a high narrow chamber, bathed in
white light. In the foreground creatures like shadowy caricatures of
men paced to and fro. "They're like something stamped out of alligator
hide," Tremaine whispered. "When they turn and I see them edge-on,
they're thin...."
"An effect of dimensional attenuation. They strive now to match
matrices with this plane. If they succeed, this earth you know will lie
at their feet."
"What are they? Where are they? That's solid rock--"
"What you see is the Niss Command Center. It lies in another world
than this, but here is the multihedron of intersection. They bring
their harmonic generators to bear here in the hope of establishing an
aperture of focus."
"I don't understand half of what you're saying, Bram. And the rest I
don't believe. But with this staring me in the face, I'll have to act
as though I did."
* * * * *
Suddenly the wall cleared. Like a surface of moulded glass the stone
threw back ghostly highlights. Beyond it, the Niss technicians, seen
now in sharp detail, worked busily, silently, their faces like masks
of ridged red-brown leather. Directly opposite Bram's Repellor, an
apparatus like an immense camera with a foot-wide silvered lens stood
aimed, a black-clad Niss perched in a saddle atop it. The white light
flooded the cave, threw black shadows across the floor. Bram hunched
over the Repellor, face tensed in strain. A glow built in the air
around the Niss machine. The alien technicians stood now, staring
with tiny bright-red eyes. Long seconds passed. The black-clad Niss
gestured suddenly. Another turned to a red-marked knife-switch, pulled.
As suddenly as it had cleared, the wall went milky, then dulled to
opacity. Bram slumped back, eyes shut, breathing hoarsely.
"Near were they then," he muttered, "I grow weak...."
"Let me take over," Tremaine said. "Tell me how."
"How can I tell you? You will not understand."
"Maybe I'll understand enough to get us through the night."
Bram seemed to gather himself. "Very well. This must you know....
"I am an agent in the service of the Great World. For centuries we have
waged war against the Niss, evil beings who loot the continua. They
established an Aperture here, on your Earth. We detected it, and found
that a Portal could be set up here briefly. I was dispatched with a
crew to counter their move--"
"You're talking gibberish," Tremaine said. "I'll pass the Great World
and the continua ... but what's an Aperture?"
"A point of material contact between the Niss world and this plane of
space-time. Through it they can pump this rich planet dry of oxygen,
killing it--then emerge to feed on the corpse."
"What's a Portal?"
"The Great World lies in a different harmonic series than do Earth
and the Niss World. Only at vast intervals can we set up a Portal of
temporary identity as the cycles mesh. We monitor the Niss emanations,
and forestall them when we can, now in this plane, now in that."
"I see: denial to the enemy."
"But we were late. Already the multihedron was far advanced. A
blinding squall lashed outside the river cave where the Niss had
focused the Aperture, and the thunder rolled as the ionization effect
was propagated in the atmosphere. I threw my force against the Niss
Aperture, but could not destroy it ... but neither could they force
their entry."
"And this was sixty years ago? And they're still at it?"
* * * * *
"You must throw off the illusion of time! To the Niss only a few days
have passed. But here--where I spend only minutes from each night in
the engagement, as the patterns coincide--it has been long years."
"Why don't you bring in help? Why do you have to work alone?"
"The power required to hold the Portal in focus against the stresses
of space-time is tremendous. Even then the cycle is brief. It gave us
first a fleeting contact of a few seconds; it was through that that we
detected the Niss activity here. The next contact was four days later,
and lasted twenty-four minutes--long enough to set up the Repellor. I
fought them then ... and saw that victory was in doubt. Still, it was a
fair world; I could not let it go without a struggle. A third identity
was possible twenty days later; I elected to remain here until then,
attempt to repel the Niss, then return home at the next contact. The
Portal closed, and my crew and I settled down to the engagement.
"The next night showed us in full the hopelessness of the contest. By
day, we emerged from where the Niss had focussed the Aperture, and
explored this land, and came to love its small warm sun, its strange
blue sky, its mantle of green ... and the small humble grass-blades. To
us of an ancient world it seemed a paradise of young life. And then I
ventured into the town ... and there I saw such a maiden as the Cosmos
has forgotten, such was her beauty....
"The twenty days passed. The Niss held their foothold--yet I had kept
them back.
"The Portal reopened. I ordered my crew back. It closed. Since then,
have I been alone...."
"Bram," Miss Carroll said. "Bram ... you stayed when you could have
escaped--and I--"
"I would that I could give you back those lost years, Linda Carroll,"
Bram said. "I would that we could have been together under a brighter
sun than this."
"You gave up your world, to give this one a little time," Tremaine
said. "And we rewarded you with a shotgun blast."
"Bram ... when will the Portal open again?"
"Not in my life, Linda Carroll. Not for ten thousand years."
"Why didn't you recruit help?" Tremaine said. "You could have trained
someone...."
"I tried, at first. But what can one do with frightened rustics? They
spoke of witchcraft, and fled."
"But you can't hold out forever. Tell me how this thing works. It's
time somebody gave you a break!"
V
Bram talked for half an hour, while Tremaine listened. "If I should
fail," he concluded, "take my place at the Repellor. Place the circlet
on your neck. When the wall clears, grip the handles and pit your mind
against the Niss. Will that they do not come through. When the thunder
rolls, you will know that you have failed."
"All right. I'll be ready. But let me get one thing straight: this
Repellor of yours responds to thoughts, is that right? It amplifies
them--"
"It serves to focus the power of the mind. But now let us make haste.
Soon, I fear, will they renew the attack."
"It will be twenty minutes or so, I think," said Tremaine. "Stay where
you are and get some rest."
Bram looked at him, his blue eyes grim under white brows. "What do you
know of this matter, young man?"
"I think I've doped out the pattern; I've been monitoring these
transmissions for weeks. My ideas seemed to prove out okay the last few
nights."
"No one but I in all this world knew of the Niss attack. How could you
have analyzed that which you knew not of?"
"Maybe you don't know it, Bram, but this Repellor of yours has been
playing hell with our communications. Recently we developed what we
thought was a Top Secret project--and you're blasting us off the air."
"This is only a small portable unit, poorly screened," Bram said. "The
resonance effects are unpredictable. When one seeks to channel the
power of thought--"
"Wait a minute!" Tremaine burst out.
"What is it?" Miss Carroll said, alarmed.
"Hyperwave," Tremaine said. "Instantaneous transmission. And
thought. No wonder people had headaches--and nightmares! We've been
broadcasting on the same band as the human mind!"
"This 'hyperwave'," Bram said. "You say it is instantaneous?"
"That's supposed to be classified information."
"Such a device is new in the cosmos," Bram said. "Only a protoplasmic
brain is known to produce a null-lag excitation state."
Tremaine frowned. "Bram, this Repellor focuses what I'll call thought
waves for want of a better term. It uses an interference effect to damp
out the Niss harmonic generator. What if we poured more power to the
Repellor?"
"No. The power of the mind cannot be amplified--"
"I don't mean amplification; I mean an additional source. I have
a hyperwave receiver here. With a little rewiring, it'll act as a
transmitter. Can we tie it in?"
Bram shook his head. "Would that I were a technician," he said. "I know
only what is required to operate the device."
"Let me take a look," Tremaine said. "Maybe I can figure it out."
"Take care. Without it, we fall before the Niss."
"I'll be careful." Tremaine went to the machine, examined it, tracing
leads, identifying components.
"This seems clear enough," he said. "These would be powerful magnets
here; they give a sort of pinch effect. And these are refracting-field
coils. Simple, and brilliant. With this idea, we could beam hyperwave--"
"First let us deal with the Niss!"
"Sure." Tremaine looked at Bram. "I think I can link my apparatus to
this," he said. "Okay if I try?"
"How long?"
"It shouldn't take more than fifteen minutes."
"That leaves little time."
"The cycle is tightening," Tremaine said. "I figure the next
transmissions ... or attacks ... will come at intervals of under five
minutes for several hours now; this may be the last chance."
"Then try," said Bram.
Tremaine nodded, went to the suitcase, took out tools and a heavy black
box, set to work. Linda Carroll sat by Bram's side, speaking softly to
him. The minutes passed.
"Okay," Tremaine said. "This unit is ready." He went to the Repellor,
hesitated a moment, then turned two nuts and removed a cover.
"We're off the air," he said. "I hope my formula holds."
* * * * *
Bram and Miss Carroll watched silently as Tremaine worked. He strung
wires, taped junctions, then flipped a switch on the hyperwave set and
tuned it, his eyes on the dials of a smaller unit.
"Nineteen minutes have passed since the last attack," Bram said. "Make
haste."
"I'm almost done," Tremaine said.
A sharp cry came from the wall. Tremaine jumped. "What the hell makes
those sounds?"
"They are nothing--mere static. But they warn that the harmonic
generators are warming." Bram struggled to his feet. "Now comes the
assault."
"The shadows!" Miss Carroll cried.
Bram sank into the chair, leaned back, his face pale as wax in the
faint glow from the wall. The glow grew brighter; the shadows swam into
focus.
"Hurry, James," Miss Carroll said. "It comes quickly."
Bram watched through half-closed eyes. "I must man the Repellor. I...."
He fell back in the chair, his head lolling.
"Bram!" Miss Carroll cried. Tremaine snapped the cover in place,
whirled to the chair, dragged it and its occupant away from the
machine, then turned, seized the grips. On the wall the Niss moved
in silence, readying the attack. The black-clad figure was visible,
climbing to his place. The wall cleared. Tremaine stared across at
the narrow room, the gray-clad Niss. They stood now, eyes on him. One
pointed. Others erected leathery crests.
_Stay out, you ugly devils_, Tremaine thought. _Go back, retreat, give
up...._
Now the blue glow built in a flickering arc across the Niss machine.
The technicians stood, staring across the narrow gap, tiny red eyes
glittering in the narrow alien faces. Tremaine squinted against the
brilliant white light from the high-vaulted Niss Command Center. The
last suggestion of the sloping surface of the limestone wall was gone.
Tremaine felt a draft stir; dust whirled up, clouded the air. There
was an odor of iodine.
_Back_, Tremaine thought. _Stay back...._
There was a restless stir among the waiting rank of Niss. Tremaine
heard the dry shuffle of horny feet against the floor, the whine of the
harmonic generator. His eyes burned. As a hot gust swept around him he
choked and coughed.
_NO!_ he thought, hurling negation like a weightless bomb. _FAIL!
RETREAT!_
* * * * *
Now the Niss moved, readying a wheeled machine, rolling it into place.
Tremaine coughed rackingly, fought to draw a breath, blinking back
blindness. A deep thrumming started up; grit particles stung his cheek,
the backs of his hands. The Niss worked rapidly, their throat gills
visibly dilated now in the unaccustomed flood of oxygen....
_Our oxygen_, Tremaine thought. _The looting has started already, and
I've failed, and the people of Earth will choke and die...._
From what seemed an immense distance, a roll of thunder trembled at the
brink of audibility, swelling.
The black-clad Niss on the alien machine half rose, erecting a
black-scaled crest, exulting. Then, shockingly, his eyes fixed on
Tremaine's, his trap-like mouth gaped, exposing a tongue like a scarlet
snake, a cavernous pink throat set with a row of needle-like snow-white
teeth. The tongue flicked out, a gesture of utter contempt.
And suddenly Tremaine was cold with deadly rage. _We have a treatment
for snakes in this world_, he thought with savage intensity. _We crush
'em under our heels...._ He pictured a writhing rattler, broken-backed,
a club descending; a darting red coral snake, its venom ready, slashed
in the blades of a power mower; a cottonmouth, smashed into red ruin by
a shotgun blast....
_BACK, SNAKE_, he thought. _DIE! DIE!_
The thunder faded.
And atop the Niss Generator, the black-clad Niss snapped his mouth
shut, crouched.
"DIE!" Tremaine shouted. "Die!"
The Niss seemed to shrink in on himself, shivering. His crest went
flaccid, twitched twice. The red eyes winked out and the Niss toppled
from the machine. Tremaine coughed, gripped the handles, turned his
eyes to a gray-uniformed Niss who scrambled up to replace the operator.
_I SAID DIE, SNAKE!_
The Niss faltered, tumbled back among his fellows, who darted about now
like ants in a broached anthill. One turned red eyes on Tremaine, then
scrambled for the red cut-out switch.
_NO, YOU DON'T_, Tremaine thought. _IT'S NOT THAT EASY, SNAKE. DIE!_
The Niss collapsed. Tremaine drew a rasping breath, blinked back tears
of pain, took in a group of Niss in a glance.
_Die!_
* * * * *
They fell. The others turned to flee then, but like a scythe Tremaine's
mind cut them down, left them in windrows. Hate walked naked among the
Niss and left none living.
_Now the machines._ Tremaine thought. He fixed his eyes on the harmonic
generator. It melted into slag. Behind it, the high panels set with
jewel-like lights blackened, crumpled into wreckage. Suddenly the air
was clean again. Tremaine breathed deep. Before him the surface of the
rock swam into view.
_NO!_ Tremaine thought thunderously. _HOLD THAT APERTURE OPEN!_
The rock-face shimmered, faded. Tremaine looked into the white-lit
room, at the blackened walls, the huddled dead. _No pity_, he thought.
_You would have sunk those white teeth into soft human throats,
sleeping in the dark ... as you've done on a hundred worlds. You're a
cancer in the cosmos. And I have the cure._
_WALLS_, he thought, _COLLAPSE!_
The roof before him sagged, fell in. Debris rained down from above, the
walls tottered, went down. A cloud of roiled dust swirled, cleared to
show a sky blazing with stars.
_Dust, stay clear_, Tremaine thought. _I want good air to breathe for
the work ahead._ He looked out across a landscape of rock, ghostly
white in the starlight.
_LET THE ROCKS MELT AND FLOW LIKE WATER!_
An upreared slab glowed, slumped, ran off in yellow rivulets that were
lost in the radiance of the crust as it bubbled, belching released
gasses. A wave of heat struck Tremaine. _Let it be cool here_, he
thought. _Now, Niss world...._
"No!" Bram's voice shouted. "Stop, stop!"
Tremaine hesitated. He stared at the vista of volcanic fury before him.
_I could destroy it all_, he thought. _And the stars in the Niss
sky...._
"Great is the power of your hate, man of Earth," Bram cried. "But curb
it now, before you destroy us all!"
"Why?" Tremaine shouted. "I can wipe out the Niss and their whole
diseased universe with them, with a thought!"
"Master yourself," Bram said hoarsely. "Your rage destroys you! One of
the suns you see in the Niss sky is your Sol!"
* * * * *
"Sol?" Tremaine said. "Then it's the Sol of a thousand years ago. Light
takes time to cross a galaxy. And the earth is still here ... so it
wasn't destroyed!"
"Wise are you," Bram said. "Your race is a wonder in the Cosmos, and
deadly is your hate. But you know nothing of the forces you unloose
now. Past time is as mutable as the steel and rock you melted but now."
"Listen to him, James," Miss Carroll pleaded. "Please listen."
Tremaine twisted to look at her, still holding the twin grips. She
looked back steadily, her head held high. Beside her, Bram's eyes were
sunken deep in his lined face.
"Jess said you looked like a princess once, Miss Carroll," Tremaine
said, "when you drove past with your red hair piled up high. And Bram:
you were young, and you loved her. The Niss took your youth from you.
You've spent your life here, fighting them, alone. And Linda Carroll
waited through the years, because she loved you ... and feared you. The
Niss did that. And you want me to spare them?"
"You have mastered them," said Bram. "And you are drunk with the power
in you. But the power of love is greater than the power of hate. Our
love sustained us; your hate can only destroy."
Tremaine locked eyes with the old man. He drew a deep breath at last,
let it out shudderingly. "All right," he said "I guess the God complex
got me." He looked back once more at the devastated landscape. "The
Niss will remember this encounter, I think. They won't try Earth again."
"You've fought valiantly, James, and won," Miss Carroll said. "Now let
the power go."
Tremaine turned again to look at her. "You deserve better than this,
Miss Carroll," he said. "Bram, you said time is mutable. Suppose--"
"Let well enough alone," Bram said. "Let it go!"
"Once, long ago, you tried to explain this to Linda Carroll. But there
was too much against it; she couldn't understand. She was afraid. And
you've suffered for sixty years. Suppose those years had never been.
Suppose I had come that night ... instead of now--"
"It could never be!"
"It can if I will it!" Tremaine gripped the handles tighter. _Let this
be THAT night_, he thought fiercely. _The night in 1901, when Bram's
last contact failed. Let it be that night, five minutes before the
portal closed. Only this machine and I remain as we are now; outside
there are gas lights in the farm houses along the dirt road to Elsby,
and in the town horses stand in the stables along the cinder alleys
behind the houses; and President McKinley is having dinner in the White
House...._
* * * * *
There was a sound behind Tremaine. He whirled. The ravaged scene
was gone. A great disc mirror stood across the cave, intersecting
the limestone wall. A man stepped through it, froze at the sight of
Tremaine. He was tall, with curly blond hair, fine-chiseled features,
broad shoulders.
"Fdazh ha?" he said. Then his eyes slid past Tremaine, opened still
wider in astonishment. Tremaine followed the stranger's glance. A
young woman, dressed in a negligee of pale silk, stood in the door, a
hair-brush in her hand, her red hair flowing free to her waist. She
stood rigid in shock.
Then....
"Mr. Bram...!" she gasped. "What--"
Tremaine found his voice. "Miss Carroll, don't be afraid," he said.
"I'm your friend, you must believe me."
Linda Carroll turned wide eyes to him. "Who are you?" she breathed. "I
was in my bedroom--"
"I can't explain. A miracle has been worked here tonight ... on your
behalf." Tremaine turned to Bram. "Look--" he started.
"What man are you?" Bram cut in in heavily accented English. "How do
you come to this place?"
"Listen to me, Bram!" Tremaine snapped. "Time is mutable. You stayed
here, to protect Linda Carroll--and Linda Carroll's world. You've just
made that decision, right?" Tremaine went on, not waiting for a reply.
"You were stuck here ... for sixty years. Earth technology developed
fast. One day a man stumbled in here, tracing down the signal from your
Repellor; that was me. You showed me how to use the device ... and with
it I wiped out the Niss. And then I set the clock back for you and
Linda Carroll. The Portal closes in two minutes. Don't waste time...."
"Mutable time?" Bram said. He went past Tremaine to Linda. "Fair lady
of Earth," he said. "Do not fear...."
"Sir, I hardly know you," Miss Carroll said. "How did I come here,
hardly clothed--"
"Take her, Bram!" Tremaine shouted. "Take her and get back through that
Portal--fast." He looked at Linda Carroll. "Don't be afraid," he said.
"You know you love him; go with him now, or regret it all your days."
"Will you come?" asked Bram. He held out his hand to her. Linda
hesitated, then put her hand in his. Bram went with her to the mirror
surface, handed her through. He looked back at Tremaine.
"I do not understand, man of Earth," he said "But I thank you." Then he
was gone.
* * * * *
Alone in the dim-lit grotto Tremaine let his hands fall from the
grips, staggered to the rocker and sank down. He felt weak, drained of
strength. His hands ached from the strain of the ordeal. How long had
it lasted? Five minutes? An hour? Or had it happened at all...?
But Bram and Linda Carroll were gone. He hadn't imagined that. And the
Niss were defeated.
But there was still his own world to contend with. The police would be
waiting, combing through the house. They would want to know what he had
done with Miss Carroll. Maybe there would be a murder charge. There'd
be no support from Fred and the Bureau. As for Jess, he was probably
in a cell now, looking a stiff sentence in the face for obstructing
justice....
Tremaine got to his feet, cast a last glimpse at the empty room,
the outlandish shape of the Repellor, the mirrored portal. It was a
temptation to step through it. But this was his world, with all its
faults. Perhaps later, when his strength returned, he could try the
machine again....
The thought appalled him. _The ashes of hate are worse than the ashes
of love_, he thought. He went to the stairs, climbed them, pressed the
button. Nothing happened. He pushed the panel aside by hand and stepped
into the kitchen. He circled the heavy table with the candlestick,
went along the hall and out onto the porch. It was almost the dawn of
a fresh spring day. There was no sign of the police. He looked at the
grassy lawn, the row of new-set saplings.
_Strange_, he thought. _I don't remember any saplings. I thought I
drove in under a row of trees...._ He squinted into the misty early
morning gloom. His car was gone. That wasn't too surprising; the cops
had impounded it, no doubt. He stepped down, glanced at the ground
ahead. It was smooth, with a faint footpath cut through the grass.
There was no mud, no sign of tire tracks--
The horizon seemed to spin suddenly. _My God!!_ Tremaine thought _I've
left myself in the year 1901...!_
* * * * *
He whirled, leaped up on the porch, slammed through the door and along
the hall, scrambled through the still-open panel, bounded down the
stairs and into the cave--
The Repellor was gone. Tremaine leaped forward with a cry--and under
his eyes, the great mirror twinkled, winked out. The black box of the
hyperwave receiver lay alone on the floor, beside the empty rocker.
The light of the kerosene lamp reflected from the featureless wall.
Tremaine turned, stumbled up the steps, out into the air. The sun
showed a crimson edge just peeping above distant hills.
1901, Tremaine thought. _The century has just turned. Somewhere a young
fellow named Ford is getting ready to put the nation on wheels, and two
boys named Wright are about to give it wings. No one ever heard of a
World War, or the roaring Twenties, or Prohibition, or FDR, or the Dust
Bowl, or Pearl Harbor. And Hiroshima and Nagasaki are just two cities
in distant floral Japan...._
He walked down the path, stood by the rutted dirt road. Placid cows
nuzzled damp grass in the meadow beyond it. In the distance a train
hooted.
_There are railroads_, Tremaine thought. _But no jet planes, no radio,
no movies, no automatic dish-washers. But then there's no TV, either.
That makes up for a lot. And there are no police waiting to grill me,
and no murder charge, and no neurotic nest of bureaucrats waiting to
welcome me back...._
He drew a deep breath. The air was sweet. _I'm here_, he thought. _I
feel the breeze on my face and the firm sod underfoot. It's real, and
it's all there is now, so I might as well take it calmly. After all, a
man with my education ought to be able to do well in this day and age!_
Whistling, Tremaine started the ten-mile walk into town.