The World Beyond Part 3

The figures of the Light-year dials were meaningless to his comprehension. The velocity was meaningless. And now another little set of dials were in operation. A thousand--something--of distance. There was a meaningless word which named the unit. A thousand Earth-miles, if he had been in his former size? The pointer marked nine hundred in a moment. Was it, perhaps, the distance now from their destination?

Vivian was beside him. "Lee, what's gonna happen to us? Won't this come to an end some time? Lee--you won't let anybody hurt me?"

She was like a child, almost always clinging to him now. And suddenly she said a very strange thing. "Lee, I been thinkin'--back there on Earth I was doin' a lot of things that maybe were pretty rotten--anglin'

for his money for instance--an' not carin' much what I had to do to get it." She gestured at the sullen Franklin who was sitting on the couch.

"You know--things like that. An' I been thinkin'--you suppose, when we get where we're goin' now, that'll be held against me?"

What a queer thing to say! She was like a child--and so often a child has an insight into that which is hidden from those more mature!

"I--don't know," Lee muttered.

From the couch, Franklin looked up moodily. "Whispering about me again?

I know you are--d.a.m.n you both. You and everybody else here."

"We're not interested in you," Vivian said.

"Oh, you're not? Well you were, back on Earth. I'm not good enough for you now, eh? He's better--because he's big--big and strong--that the idea? Well if I ever had the chance--"

"Don't be silly," Lee said.

The sullen Franklin was working himself into a rage. Lee seemed to understand Franklin better now. A weakling. Inherently, with a complex of inferiority, the vague consciousness of it lashing him into baffled anger.

"You, Anthony," Franklin burst out, "don't think you've been fooling me.

You can put it over that fool girl, but not me. I'm onto you."

"Put what over?" Lee said mildly.

"That you don't know anything about this affair or these men who've got us--you don't know who they are, do you?"

"No. Do you?" Lee asked.

Franklin jumped to his feet. "Don't fence with me. By G.o.d, if I was bigger I'd smash your head in. They abducted us, because they wanted you. That fellow said as much near the start of this d.a.m.ned trip. They won't talk--afraid I'll find out. And you can't guess what it's all about! The h.e.l.l you can't."

Lee said nothing. But there was a little truth in what Franklin was saying, of course.... Those things that the dying old Anna Green had told him--surely this weird voyage had some connection.

He turned away; went back to the window. There was a sheen now. A vague outline of something vast, as though the darkness were ending at a great wall that glowed a little.

It seemed, during the next time-interval, as though the globe might have turned over, so that now it was dropping down upon something tangible.

Dropping--floating down--with steadily decreasing velocity, descending to a Surface. The sheen of glow had expanded until now it filled all the lower hemisphere of darkness--a great spread of surface visually coming up. Then there were things to see, illumined by a faint half-light to which color was coming; a faint, pastel color that seemed a rose-glow.

"Why--why," Vivian murmured, "say, it's beautiful, ain't it? It looks like fairyland--or Heaven. It does--don't it, Lee?"

"Yes," Lee murmured. "Like--like--"

The wall-slide rasped. The voice of one of their captors said, "We will arrive soon. We can trust you--there must be no fighting?"

"You can trust us," Lee said.

It was dark in the little curving corridor of the globe, where with silent robed figures around them, they stood while the globe gently landed. Then they were pushed forward, out through the exit port.

The new realm. The World Beyond. What was it? To Lee Anthony then came the feeling that there was a precise scientific explanation of it, of course. And yet, beyond all that pedantry of science, he seemed to know that it was something else, perhaps a place that a man might mould by his dreams. A place that would be what a man made of it, from that which was within himself.

Solemn with awe he went with his companions slowly down the incline.

CHAPTER III

_Realm of Mystery_

"We wish nothing of you," the man said, "save that you accept from us what we have to offer. You are hungry. You will let us bring you food."

It was a simple rustic room to which they had been brought--a room in a house seemingly of plaited straw. Crude furnishings were here--table and chairs of Earth fashion, padded with stuffed mats. Woven matting was on the floor. Through a broad latticed window the faint rose-light outside--like a soft pastel twilight--filtered in, tinting the room with a gentle glow. Thin drapes at the window stirred in a breath of breeze--a warm wind from the hills, scented with the vivid blooms which were everywhere.

It had been a brief walk from the s.p.a.ce-globe. Lee had seen what seemed a little village stretching off among the trees. There had been people crowding to see the strangers--men, women and children, in simple crude peasant garb--brief garments that revealed their pink-white bodies. They babbled with strange unintelligible words, crowding forward until the robed men from the globe shoved them away.

It was a pastoral, peaceful scene--a little country-side drowsing in the warm rosy twilight. Out by the river there were fields where men stood at their simple agricultural implements--stood at rest, staring curiously at the commotion in the village.

And still Lee's captors would say nothing, merely drew them forward, into this room. Then all of them left, save one. He had doffed his robe now. He was an old man, with long grey-white hair to the base of his neck. He stood smiling. His voice, with the English words queerly p.r.o.nounced, was gentle, but with a firm finality of command.

"My name is Arkoh," he said. "I am to see that you are made comfortable.

This house is yours. There are several rooms, so that you may do in them as you wish."

"Thank you," Lee said. "But you can certainly understand--I have asked many questions and never had any answers. If you wish to talk to me alone--"

"That will come presently. There is no reason for you to be worried--"

"We're not worried," Franklin burst out. "We're fed up with this highhanded stuff. You'll answer questions now. What I demand to know is why--"

"Take it easy," Lee warned.

Franklin had jumped to his feet. He flung off Lee's hand. "Don't make me laugh. I know you're one of them--everything about you is a fake. You got us into this--"

"So? You would bring strife here from your Earth?" Arkoh's voice cut in, like a knife-blade cleaving through Franklin's bl.u.s.ter. "That is not permissible. Please do not make it necessary that there should be violence here." He stood motionless. But before his gaze Franklin relaxed into an incoherent muttering.

"Thank you," Arkoh said. "I shall send you the food." He turned and left the room.

Vivian collapsed into a chair. She was trembling. "Well--my Gawd--what is all this? Lee--that old man with his gentle voice--he looked like if you crossed him you'd be dead. Not that he'd hurt you--it would be--would be something else--"

"You talk like an a.s.s," Franklin said. "You've gone crazy--and I don't blame you--this d.a.m.ned weird thing. For all that old man's smooth talk, we're just prisoners here. Look outside that window--"

It was a little garden, drowsing in the twilight. A man stood watching the window. And as Lee went to the lattice, he could see others, like guards outside.