"Good idea," Edmund said briskly. "I think we've hit on several crucial
points along the way and half disentangled them from the great mass of
inconsequential material. I'll finish up that part of the job right now
and present my case when we're all a bit fresher. Say half an hour?"
Theodor nodded heavily, pushing up from his chair and hitching his
cloak over a shoulder.
"I'm going out for a drink," he informed them.
After several hesitant seconds, Rosalind quietly followed him. Frieda
stretched out on a couch and closed her eyes. Edmund scanned microfilms
tirelessly, every now and then setting one aside.
Celeste watched him for a minute, then sprang up and started toward the
room where Dotty was asleep. But midway she stopped.
_Not my child_, she thought bitterly. _Frieda's her mother, Rosalind
her nurse. I'm nothing at all. Just one of the husband's girl friends.
A lady of uneasy virtue in a dissolving world._
But then she straightened her shoulders and went on.
* * * * *
Rosalind didn't catch up with Theodor. Her footsteps were silent and
he never looked back along the path whose feeble white glow rose only
knee-high, lighting a low strip of shrub and mossy tree trunk to either
side, no more.
It was a little chilly. She drew on her gloves, but she didn't hurry.
In fact, she fell farther and farther behind the dipping tail of
his scarlet cloak and his plodding red shoes, which seemed to move
disembodied, like those in the fairy tale.
When she reached the point where she had found Ivan's briefcase, she
stopped altogether.
A breeze rustled the leaves, and, moistly brushing her cheek, brought
forest scents of rot and mold. After a bit she began to hear the
furtive scurryings and scuttlings of forest creatures.
She looked around her half-heartedly, suddenly realizing the futility
of her quest. What clues could she hope to find in this knee-high
twilight? And they'd thoroughly combed the place earlier in the night.
Without warning, an eerie tingling went through her and she was seized
by a horror of the cold, grainy Earth underfoot--an ancestral terror
from the days when men shivered at ghost stories about graves and tombs.
A tiny detail persisted in bulking larger and larger in her mind--the
unnaturalness of the way the Earth had impregnated the corner of Ivan's
briefcase, almost as if dirt and leather co-existed in the same space.
She remembered the queer way the partly buried briefcase had resisted
her first tug, like a rooted plant.
She felt cowed by the mysterious night about her, and literally
dwarfed, as if she had grown several inches shorter. She roused herself
and started forward.
Something held her feet.
They were ankle-deep in the path. While she looked in fright and
horror, they began to sink still lower into the ground.
She plunged frantically, trying to jerk loose. She couldn't. She had
the panicky feeling that the Earth had not only trapped but invaded
her; that its molecules were creeping up between the molecules of her
flesh; that the two were becoming one.
And she was sinking faster. Now knee-deep, thigh-deep, hip-deep,
waist-deep. She beat at the powdery path with her hands and threw her
body from side to side in agonized frenzy like some sinner frozen in
the ice of the innermost circle of the ancients' hell. And always the
sense of the dark, grainy tide rose inside as well as around her.
She thought, _he'd just have had time to scribble that note on his
briefcase and toss it away._ She jerked off a glove, leaned out as
far as she could, and made a frantic effort to drive its fingers into
the powdery path. Then the Earth mounted to her chin, her nose, and
covered her eyes.
She expected blackness, but it was as if the light of the path stayed
with her, making a little glow all around. She saw roots, pebbles,
black rot, worn tunnels, worms. Tier on tier of them, her vision
penetrating the solid ground. And at the same time, the knowledge that
these same sorts of things were coursing up through her.
* * * * *
And still she continued to sink at a speed that increased, as if the
law of gravitation applied to her in a diminished way. She dropped from
black soil through gray clay and into pale limestone.
Her tortured, rock-permeated lungs sucked at rock and drew in air. She
wondered madly if a volume of air were falling with her through the
stone.
A glitter of quartz. The momentary openness of a foot-high cavern
with a trickle of water. And then she was sliding down a black basalt
column, half inside it, half inside gold-flecked ore. Then just black
basalt. And always faster.
It grew hot, then hotter, as if she were approaching the mythical
eternal fires.
* * * * *
At first glance Theodor thought the Deep Space Bar was empty. Then he
saw a figure hunched monkeylike on the last stool, almost lost in the
blue shadows, while behind the bar, her crystal dress blending with the
tiers of sparkling glasses, stood a grave-eyed young girl who could
hardly have been fifteen.
The TV was saying, "... in addition, a number of mysterious
disappearances of high-rating individuals have been reported. These
are thought to be cases of misunderstanding, illusory apprehension,
and impulse traveling--a result of the unusual stresses of the time.
Finally, a few suggestible individuals in various parts of the globe,
especially the Indian Peninsula, have declared themselves to be 'gods'
and in some way responsible for current events.
"It is thought--"
The girl switched off the TV and took Theodor's order, explaining
casually, "Joe wanted to go to a Kometevskyite meeting, so I took over
for him." When she had prepared Theodor's highball, she announced,
"I'll have a drink with you gentlemen," and squeezed herself a glass of
pomegranate juice.
The monkeylike figure muttered, "Scotch-and-soda," then turned toward
Edmund and asked, "And what is your reaction to all this, sir?"
* * * * *
Theodor recognized the shrunken wrinkle-seamed face. It was Colonel
Fortescue, a military antique long retired from the Peace Patrol and
reputed to have seen actual fighting in the Last Age of Madness. Now,
for some reason, the face sported a knowing smile.
Theodor shrugged. Just then the TV "big news" light blinked blue and
the girl switched on audio. The Colonel winked at Theodor.
"... confirming the disappearance of Jupiter's moons. But two other
utterly fantastic reports have just been received. First, Lunar
Observatory One says that it is visually tracking fourteen small bodies
which it believes may be the lost moons of Jupiter. They are moving
outward from the Solar System at an incredible velocity and are already
beyond the orbit of Saturn!"