They took him to the spot where the deed had been done- not the contamination, but the decontamination of the capsule. The capsule was already in a bottle in the Senator’s suburban residence, in storage for later use. It was an irony of the type Satan specialized in that this Senator had acted to block more effective regulation of the production and marketing of exactly such products as this, so that slipshod quality control was practiced in the interests of cost-economy, and many people were harmed by such contamination. But now it suited Satan’s purpose to preserve the life of the Senator, so he had acted.
The demon had simply come, denaturized the capsule, and expired. Norton would have to catch the demon just before it did the job and cause it to expire early. That was all. Gaea had provided him with a vial of holy water for the purpose. Norton had donned a conventional suit, concealing his white cloak, so that he would not seem remarkable among the mortals.
The room was empty and dusty now; the Senator’s house had been sold after he died, and this wing of it was in disuse. Of course, it might remain empty if Satan’s ploy worked, for in eight years the Senator could have died of natural causes. Satan didn’t care about the Senator; he just wanted to see that Luna was not the person who replaced him.
Norton concentrated on the Hourglass, turning the sand blue, and zoomed through time to the designated moment. The other Incarnations could not come with him for this mission; they had to maintain their own positions in this historical period so that Satan would not suspect what effort was being made here.
He arrived at the designated time and slowed to his normal pace. He raised the Hourglass, about to invoke the major magical attempt of his brief career, when he noticed something. He had overshot his target time by a few minutes and come within the six-hour limit. That was readily fixed; he would simply back up till he was clear, before engaging the rest of the world. He had not yet phased in to reality, so there would be no three-person complication. But there was another thing-something that jarred.
He was in the same room he had started from, a generous eight years hence, but now it was filled with supplies: bottles of bourbon, smoked hams, cans of caviar, and other signals of rich living. The Senator evidently believed in taking care of Number One first. One high shelf was devoted to medicines-more than one man should need in a lifetime. Among these was the bottle;
Lachesis had described it precisely, so Norton would know it without fail. All this he had anticipated. But there was another presence, and that was what had made him pause.
Sitting across from the key bottle and watching it intently was a small demon. The creature was so small it could have been a figurine, with little snub-horns, red shoe-button eyes, and a leathery forked tail. But it was no figurine; it was a living-if that term applied-minion of Satan.
Had the demon survived its mission? No, the other Incarnations should not have been wrong about a detail like that. This must be another demon, a contemporary one, assigned to guard the capsule until it was used. That could only mean that Satan was aware of this counterplot after all. The Satan of this time, eight years before Norton’s present. Since Satan did not live backward, he could not know what his future self had done-but he surely had recognized his minion. So he must have assumed, correctly, that his future self was up to something nefarious and he was seeing that no one interfered with whatever that was. He would not know why the demon from the future had nullified the contamination, but he would know there was good, or rather evil, reason. Satan was evil, but not stupid.
This posed a problem for Norton. The little demon could not perceive him at the moment, for Chronos was not obvious in his normal state. The demon was existing forward, while Chronos existed backward. Only when he phased in to the world-or made the world phase in to him-was he apparent to others. But when he did reverse the world, he would be apparent to this demon. That would tip off Satan, the Satan of this time, and there could be all manner of trouble. In fact, that might be this demon’s purpose-to catch Chronos himself when he approached the capsule and balk his effort.
Mischief indeed! He had to do something about that guardian demon, for the creature would surely interfere with him one way or another. If it summoned its master to this spot, Norton’s little vial of holy water would be relegated to the status of mere annoyance. Holy water destroyed the things of Satan but could not touch Satan himself, just as Satan’s minions could spread mischief in the world but not touch God Himself or directly harm other Incarnations. Maybe the demon would not be able to stop Norton, because, of course, the world would be proceeding backward. But he didn’t care to take the risk. Why should Satan post a demon, if it couldn’t do anything?
But if Norton phased in and tackled the demon, extinguishing it with the holy water-wouldn’t that action alert Satan? Again Norton wasn’t quite sure, and hesitated to gamble. Too much was at stake.
He pondered, then decided that the best thing to do was to avoid the demon. If the creature never knew Chronos was present, it would never give its master the alarm. Satan would assume that all was well (ill)-until it was too late (early). Norton would approach the capsule only at its moment of change, then use his holy water. A swift, surgical strike-and victory.
He walked away from the chamber, passing through the wall. In his normal mode, the universe was hardly aware of him, and he could ignore it to the extent he found convenient. He was very much like a ghost. He emerged onto a busy street, one of those old-fashioned kinds with concrete sidewalks, asphalt road surface, and ornamental shrubs planted along the sides. Most suburban streets, even on this day eight years in the past, were traveling composition sheets that carried both people and vehicles to and from their residences, just as they did in the nether levels. Evidently the Senator was conservative and had prevented modernization of his region. It was a status symbol to live primitively when the common man lived modernistically; it was also a type of posturing- the humble servant of the people. This should be a good place for Norton to phase in to; he could lose himself in the throng, and the demon in the house would never know.
Norton reddened the sand and moved fifteen minutes forward in the world’s time. This put him safely beyond the six-hour limit. There was a large clock on the facade of a store, another archaic affectation; its hands jumped from 11:03 to 11:18 A.M.
Now he turned the sand white, for his normal progress backward. And he concentrated-and caused the sand to reverse, flowing up to the top chamber, causing the outside world to match his time flow. He had once thought that the falling sand measured his own passing life, but now knew that was only approximate. The sand measured-everything.
He willed the magic to include the entire world and felt the massive engagement of magic as the spell of the Hourglass took hold. This was potent sorcery and represented the limit of what the Hourglass could do. A significant portion of the magic power of the planet was being drawn on here, channeled to this purpose. He knew he would have to give the instrument a rest, once this mission was over, so it could cool and recharge.
The white sand flowed up and the world phased in to Chronos’timeline. The facade clock started to tick backward; the breeze reversed-and so did the people. A car had been approaching Norton on the street; now that car was moving backward. Pedestrians walked backward. Some of them looked startled.
Startled? Norton had not expected this! These people were aware! They realized that they had reversed, though they were powerless to prevent it. This was a new wrinkle. Would it make a difference?
He glanced at the Senator’s mansion. Was that a face looking out the window? Probably just a perplexed servant-but it could be the demon. Norton decided to get out of sight of the building. He strode down the street.
Now a problem manifested. He was moving with the flow of pedestrian traffic-but the other people were walking backward. Norton was following a young man- but the man was facing him. To the man, Norton realized, it was as if he, Norton, were striding backward. Certainly Norton differed from others here.
How much easier this would have been on a normal moving belt! Then he could simply have stood in place, facing back, and not attracted attention.
No help for it. The man before him was starting to gawk. Perhaps this one did not realize he was now living backward, so saw Norton, who traveled forward into the past, as a freak. Norton turned about and proceeded to walk backward.
Unfortunately, this was not his natural mode. The others could walk backward at speed with confidence, because they were reversing a course already traveled; Norton was not. He was new to this scene. He tripped on a crevice and stumbled, wind milling his arms. This was no good either!
He looked back at the Senator’s mansion. Someone was emerging from it, he thought. The little demon?
Norton ducked into an alley, just wanting to get out of sight. Now he didn’t bother to walk backward; that was too much trouble and not much for either safety or concealment.
He heard a groan. He went to the source-and found an old man lying in a pile of garbage, bleeding from the head. He had evidently been mugged and needed help. Norton started toward him-and suddenly another man charged backward toward them, holding a wallet.
Norton paused, uncertain what was happening. The running man went right to the fallen one, bent to tuck the wallet into his back pocket, turned him over, and retreated a step while the victim hunched himself back to his feet. The other man brought out a blunt instrument, unclubbing the victim’s head. Then he retreated, while the victim, his head unbruised, scalp untorn, proceeded blithely backward after him at a slower pace, just as if nothing had happened.
Norton, furious, charged the mugger. He caught the man’s blunt-instrument arm and swung him about. Startled, the mugger cried, “!yeH”
“You mugged him!” Norton accused.
The man stared at him. “!gniog er’uoy erehw hctaW” he exclaimed.
Norton paused. Backward speech! Another complication ! No doubt the people of the world were able to understand one another, since they were all living backward, but he, Norton, was living forward. Their speech was gibberish to him. He should have anticipated this, but had had no prior experience, since he had to phase in on green to interact with normals. Physical involvement was different from aloof observation!
Frustrated, he wrenched the blunt instrument from the man’s grip and threw it away. “Get out of here, you criminal!” he cried, shoving the man away.
The man, surprised, ran backward away from him, disappearing around a corner. Norton stood, trying to get oriented. Had he disarmed a mugger just after-just before the mugging and prevented the crime-or had he merely witnessed it? The man had had the blunt instrument at the time of the act. Obviously he had completed the crime before time reversed; would he be balked when time reversed again, after (before) Norton’s mission ended (began)? Norton hoped so. Therefore a perfect replay of prior events wasn’t possible, with his interference. Maybe he had saved an innocent victim some trouble.
He looked around for that victim, thinking to warn him of the danger, but the man had gone. He must have taken another route. Anyway, the mugging hadn’t happened yet.
Norton walked along the alley. He was in the unsightly service area where garbage cans sat and the pavement was dirty. Garbage cans? This was another aspect of the past that wasn’t all that aesthetic! Far better to use a modern banishing-spell for that sort of thing! But, of course, such spells were expensive, and not every person was able to invoke them properly; sometimes a bungled spell brought extra garbage into a house instead.
He glanced up and saw a magic carpet fly backward high above the buildings, the only present evidence of the good modem life. This was not two hundred years ago, even though it might seem like it.
He found a back step and sat down. He had time to pass, away from observation by the demon, and this was as good a place as any. It was private because it was ugly; crowds did not seek this particular region out.
His wandering eye spied graffiti on the opposite wall. Idly curious, Norton studied them. Most were in male hand, large, dark, and crude in both execution and concept: four-letter words describing sexual and scatological concepts, as if mankind were hopelessly enraged at the universe and determined to demean it. These graffiti were basically rapes of the viewers, assaults on whatever sensitivities passersby might possess. No beauty or gentleness or caring here, just ugliness. Norton felt ashamed to be a man. But he noted one thing; the words were not backward. Time was reversed, but not space. So if he really had to talk with someone, he could do it by writing. Lachesis had done that at the outset of his career as Chronos; she had known. Now he realized the significance of that approach.
Nestled below the male efforts were a few female offerings. These were small, neat, and polite, and seemed to represent genuine efforts to communicate. “My John avoids me, but I still love him. What should I do?” one asked plaintively. Below it was an answer in a different feminine hand: “Mine, too; it hurts.” And another: “Stay the course, sister; he’ll get tired of the tart.” And another:
“Who wants him, then? Used goods.” And a final one:
“Who you calling a tart?” Norton had to smile, somewhat wanly. He liked the company of these anonymous but distressed women better than he did that of his own kind; at least they seemed sensitive and human.
He noticed that nothing on the wall had been erased. All contributors and readers seemed to honor this rule: thou shalt not erase another person’s message. It was all right to talk back to a message by writing a contradicting one, but not to destroy the original, no matter how crowded the wall got. Small messages were written within large ones; there was much overlapping, but no actual molesting. Here was the ultimate free society!
Norton knew that all men were not loud, crass boors and all women were not sweet and troubled innocents. They just came across that way on walls. Perhaps it would be the same if the rest of society were similarly free and anonymous; the constraints of civilization did have a lot to offer. The graffiti were the exposed underside of society, just as this service alley, with its garbage cans, was the backside of the town. Both sides, actually, were probably necessary.
Moved by a curious emotion, he got up, went to the wall, scrounged in the debris at its foot for a fragment of chalk, and wrote below the feminine messages: “This John loves you, not the tart.”
He returned to the step. Would the original woman ever see his offering? Would it mean anything to her? Or would it be blotted out by the excretions of mocking male graffiti? He probably would never know. That was the problem with anonymity. But he had had to speak, however feebly, for his kind.
He looked at the wall, tracing to the place where his own contribution was-and his graffito was gone. Startled, he peered closer-then realized that its absence was explicable. He and the world were moving backward in time, so his present situation preceded his message on the wall. His words would appear in due course, when time resumed its normal flow.
But the message had not been there when he first sat down! How could he explain that?
He pondered and worked it out. He was not an ordinary member of this scene. He had not been here on the original go-round. What he did was not a reversal of what he had done before; it was new. So he was, in fact, changing reality in some small degree. His graffito had not existed before he had made it, but did exist now-or would exist when normal time resumed, though he probably would not retrace his course to make it. He was exempt from paradox. He did what he did and it was done-though a normal person could not have done it that way. Normal rules did not apply to Incarnations. He was continuing to learn his trade.
To the right, a desultory mongrel dog wandered up, tail-first. The animal meandered to a pile of refuse and paused, partially squatting. Sausage-shaped chunks of the refuse lifted from the ground and squeezed into the dog’s waiting posterior. Norton watched, disgusted but fascinated. Of course biology was backward too! The dog, a mere animal, did not realize what had happened-but how would a human being react to this particular necessity of life?
‘The dog, satisfied, trotted backward on past Norton to a garbage can to the left. The lid was off and the contents partially scattered. The dog went and neatened it up; fragments of garbage jumped into the can, and then the lid sailed to seal it as the dog removed its nose.
Then a demon appeared, walking backward. This one was larger than the one by the capsule bottle. They were searching for him! That meant Satan did have some notion of what was going on. The backward flow of time had surely given him the hint! How he planned to stop Chronos was a mystery-but Satan’s craft and power were great, and Norton did not want to meet that challenge directly. He had to avoid the demon!
The thing was regressing down the street, tail-first, peering from side to side. Soon it would spot Norton. And-there was another backing in from the opposite side! They had him cornered.
Norton jumped up and turned the old-fashioned round knob handle of the door behind his step. The door opened; evidently the occupants were not worried about intrusions from this direction-or maybe they were simply careless, or believed they had nothing worth stealing.
The doorway opened directly into a kitchen. A woman sat there eating a snack. She was a housewife in her thirties, not yet past the age of sex appeal, but frowsy in her curlers and housecoat. She was not aware of Norton, and this was not surprising, because she had distractions of her own. She was consuming her snack backward, and this evidently bothered her, but she couldn’t stop it. What she had eaten had to be uneaten.
The cup of coffee was not bad; she brought it to her mouth and tilted it, and the flow of fluid into the cup was hardly visible. Her throat worked, bringing up a swallow. Then she set down the cup, its level of coffee raised, and stared at it with dismay.
Next she put her hand to her lips and spat out a few indelicate crumbs. Then she opened her mouth wide and ejected a bite of coffee cake. This was followed by another, and another, until the full cake was there. She stared at it with odd horror. “?gniod I ma tahW” she asked out loud.
“It’s all right,” Norton answered, closing the door behind him so the demons wouldn’t see him. “Time is backward.”
Startled, she looked at him. “?uoy era ohW” she demanded, drawing her housecoat open to reveal her bosom. Her reactions were, of course, reversed; she had intended to conceal herself.
“Don’t be concerned,” Norton said. “I’m hiding from- “But he paused as he realized that his words were gibberish to her, as hers were to him. Each was living backward relative to the other, though they moved in time together. She could see him and hear him, but could not understand him.
The woman scrambled from her chair-and almost fell, again because of her backward reactions. Norton hurried across to steady her, and this alarmed her even more. “!em hcuot t’noD” she cried, colliding with the wall. A dish rose from the floor, where it had evidently shattered, and nudged back to the jostled shelf with its companions.
He had to reassure her! Norton found a pad of notepaper on the table, and a pencil; she had perhaps intended to make out a grocery list. I AM A FRIEND, he wrote.
She stared at the sheet. He knew what her problem was: in a normal time sequence, his reassurance would have occurred before her fright that caused him to write it, and this cause-after-effect was difficult for her to accept. But she was living backward now, so his actions changed her reality. She was remembering what had happened in the immediate future.
Best to take her mind off the incipient paradox. I’M HIDING FROM DEMONS, he wrote on the sheet.
“,snomeD” she repeated doubtfully.
“Snomed,” he agreed, imitating her pronunciation. It was amazing how alien ordinary human speech sounded when pronounced backward’Then, on paper: I’M UNDER A SPELL. I SPEAK BACKWARD.
“,hO” she said, her face brightening with comprehension. “.drawkcaB”
“Drawkcab,” he agreed, aware that he was mangling the pronunciation and punctuation. He wrote: THE WORLD IS GOING BACKWARD.
She nodded agreement, her glance flickering warily past the unconsumed coffee and cake. Perhaps, he realized, she had thought she was being sick. Now she knew it was merely a different reality.
“?yhW” she asked.
Norton tried to phrase an answer she would be able to understand and accept, but found himself at a loss. How could he tell her that he was responsible, and be believed? To prove it, he would have to reverse the effect- and that he refused to do.
He was spared the awkwardness of answering by the arrival of another person. A man ambled into the kitchen backward, tilting a bottle of beer in his mouth. He was evidently the woman’s husband, for she evinced only boredom at his presence. He was in baggy trousers and undershirt, his hair tousled, his face unshaven for this day. What he was doing home at this hour Norton didn’t know; maybe this was one of the intermittent periods of underemployment the society suffered, so this family was subsisting on state funds while waiting for the economy to improve. The man unpoured the last drop of beer into the bottle as the final bubble descended into his mouth, then capped it and set the bottle into the refrigerator. Then he noticed Norton.
Norton held up his last sign: THE WORLD is GOING BACKWARD, hoping to forestall a jealous-husband reaction. The woman tried to pull herself together again, and again succeeded only in further displaying her private flesh. “,drawkcab gnivil er’eW” she said.
“?eh si lleh eht ohW” the man demanded, glaring at Norton.
“,snomed morf gnidih s’eH” she explained.
“-lleW” he began, then paused. “?drawkcaB”
“,drawkcaB” she agreed firmly.
“!top eht ffo tog tsuj I tuB” he said, annoyed.
The woman looked at her unconsumed repast. “?did uoY” she asked, making a connection. “-snaem taht nehT”
“!taht toN” he exclaimed. “!t’nseod ti ,on ,hO”
Norton had by this time figured out what “top” translated to. He repressed a smile, remembering the dog in the alley.
“!ereh fo tuo gnitteg m’I” the man cried, charging backward out of the kitchen. But his reflexes, like those of the woman, betrayed him. Their dialogue had evidently been in sensible order for them, but their actions remained reversed. And though their individual phrases or sentences were backward, their separate verbal exchanges seemed to be more in the order of present consciousness. Norton’s presence altered their reality to a degree, but not enough to reverse them totally or to provide them true self-determination. The man, despite his horror, was backing toward what looked to be the bathroom.
Well, Norton thought, this was a necessary consequence of reverse biology. What was ejected from the body in the form of coffee, cake, or whatever had to be taken in, in some other fashion. The biology of men and animals did not differ that much.
“!oN !oN” the man screamed from the hidden room. There was the sound of a toilet flushing backward. A pause, then a scream of sheer horror and outrage. It seemed the job had been done-or undone, as the case might be.
Norton decided to vacate the premises before the man returned to the kitchen, as he might be in an ugly mood after taking on that ugly load. Norton cracked the door open and peeked.
The demons were gone. He had slipped their net. He slid out, leaving the family to its adjustments. The last thing he saw as he glanced back inside was the woman’s face as she looked toward the bathroom. She wore a somewhat smug expression, as if she thought the man had gotten what he deserved.
Norton made his way across the street, then walked carefully backward to a small park. There he selected an isolated bench and sat on it. That way, he seemed no different from the normal people and did not attract unwelcome attention.
Perhaps an hour had passed; it was now, according to the park clock, just after 10 A.M. Norton watched the clock click back to the hour and heard it bong ten times. Even the bongs were in reverse: !GNOB ,GNOB He saw the squirrels leaping backward from branch to branch and assembling nuts from scattered shells and regurgitated interiors. Periodically a person would back past, attracting the whole peanuts to his swinging hand and depositing them in a bag.
A young couple backed past Norton and into the bushes behind his bench. They were not aware of him, intent on their liaison. But they became conscious of the reversal, and this seemed to affect their lovemaking. Norton listened unashamedly, trying to visualize what was happening. To experience the gratification first, followed by the buildup-that might be unsettling. Sure enough, after a while the couple backed away from the bushes with perplexed expressions.
The sun moved slowly eastward. Morning was arriving. Rush-hour traffic developed on the street, the cars and carpets crowding crazily backward at a hazardous velocity. People hurried back past the park without noticing it, paying no attention to Norton. He was just a character on a bench, not rating either a backward or a forward glance.
But he became aware of another problem. The progress of time was not perfect. At first he thought it was his own boredom stretching things out, but when he checked his watch, which measured his personal time, against the park clock, he discovered that the clock was taking a minute and a half to back up one minute. What was wrong?
The question prompted the answer: the magic was weakening. The Hourglass was powerful but not omnipotent, and the reversal of the whole world was a considerable chore. After two hours, the Hourglass was losing its edge, processing the enormous magic less efficiently.
He concentrated, willing the magic back to full potency. This was effective; the normal pace of time resumed. But now he had to keep his mind on it, because, when his attention slipped, so did time. He could not simply wait for the key moment to arrive; he had to will its arrival. Fortunately, this was not difficult; it was like holding on to a suitcase. It did require effort, but the effort became automatic.
The clock bonged past nine and started toward eight thirty. Then it bonged nine again. Norton jumped up, alarmed. He had started nodding, and time had not only slowed, it had resumed forward progress. That was no good! He concentrated again, and the clock bonged nine a third time and proceeded safely on backward.
Norton paced around the park, afraid to sit down again, lest he lose concentration. He had several hours to go and he meant to see it through.
He started into an intersection of paths near a backward spouting fountain-and saw a demon on the intersecting path. The creature was approaching backward, so didn’t see Norton; that was the second time he had been in luck this way. He was walking forward when others were not near to see, pausing when they were. But if he paused here, the demon would come back far enough to spy him, and that could not be allowed. Norton retreated hastily the way he had come. He hid behind a tree and watched the demon pass. Surely the thing was looking for him;
Satan did not send his minions out in public without good reason, for people tended to react negatively to demons. It wasn’t that Satan cared how human beings felt, but he did not like them getting jolted back to righteous living that would cost him souls. So he kept his operators covert, except for his continual ad campaign to convince people that Hell was in fact a fun place. No one with any sense believed that-but there were a lot of stupid people in the world. Satan also maintained discreet recruitment stations, but no demons were ever in evidence there; it was strictly soft sell.
But all this walking and skulking about was making Norton tired. He wanted to rest his feet-but didn’t dare. Then his eyes fell on his ring. “Sning!” he said happily. “Will you warn me if I start to lose concentration?”
Squeeze.
Gratefully he sank onto a bench. Oh, that relaxation felt good to his legs!
Fifteen minutes later, Sning gave him a good, hard double squeeze. He snapped alert. “Thanks, Sning,” he said. “I needed that. Stay on the job.”
In this manner he endured till 8 A.M. Then he got up and walked some more. He had to make it to just after five in the morning; he was halfway there.
He spied another demon and avoided it. They were really cruising the area! Fortunately, they were handicapped by having to proceed backward. But they would probably be thickest at the time and place of the capsule nullification; how would he get there without being caught by them?
It was getting harder to keep time on track. He had to concentrate more intently, making up for the slowly fading power of the Hourglass. He felt as if he were running a marathon; the miles were passing, but his strength was depleting. Would he be able to make it to the end? He had to! But it was not going to be easy. He had not practiced willing before; he had no muscles for the purpose and wasn’t sure even how to tell the nature of fatigue of the will.
He went to the public facility for a routine call of nature. His own biology was forward, but the other men were retreating from the urinals with distinctly uncomfortable expressions. They had no real choice about using the facilities, but he couldn’t blame them for not liking what happened there. Normal processes did not seem aesthetic when reversed. There was probably some philosophy to be gleaned from that realization, but right now he was too busy keeping time moving to cogitate on that. He used the facilities, hoping no one would notice that he was not reversed, then backed away, adopting the appropriate disgruntled expression.
Sning squeezed his finger more frequently, but he made it to 7 A.M. without significant incident. Two more hours!
Now doubt was seeping in, clogging the channels of his concentration. Could he make it to 5 A.M.? His effort of will was not the same as a physical effort, yet he felt himself tiring. The Hourglass continued to fade, so that he had to fill in with more will, and his will was becoming exhausted. The park clock began wavering again, and the people and vehicles performed a strange kind of dance, moving backward and forward and backward again as the flow of time fluxed. Sning’s squeezes were almost continuous, and these, too, were losing effect. Norton was sweating, though he was standing still. This was awful!
“Sir, may I pleh uoy?”
Norton looked dully at the speaker. It was an attractive young woman who leaned toward him and away from him as time wavered. “No, I- “he began, then felt a surge of dizziness.
She caught his arm, steadying him. “?era you ill” she asked solicitously. “Here, tis nwod. m’I a nurse.”
Her speech was phasing backward and forward, too, as time changed. He had to get it back on track! He put forth a special effort, and the normal backflow resumed.
“?ytilaer degnahc siht ti sI” she inquired, “.sselmrah s’ti tub ,ot tsujda ot drah s’ti wonk I”
Norton was getting better at comprehending backward speech, though this was far from perfect. The woman had caught on to the fact of the backward flow of time and was trying to reassure him. She assumed that it was the shock of reversal that was making him ill. Well, in a way it was.
“Thank you,” he said.
She glanced at him, startled. “?aisahpA” she inquired.
Oops-he had dazzled her with his own backward speech. She thought it was aphasia. Well, again it was close enough. “Yes,” he said.
“!suoires si sihT !nam roop uoY” she exclaimed.
Norton scraped a section clear in the dirt beside the bench and leaned down to scratch a message with his forefinger. IT’S ONLY VERBAL, he wrote.
She rummaged in her purse for some paper and a pen. CAN YOU READ THIS? she wrote.
He nodded yes.
“,thgir lla er’uoy sseug I nehT” she said. She stood, ready to depart.
Then Norton spied another demon. The creature was walking rapidly backward; no chance to avoid it.
Norton put his face in his hands, hoping he would not be recognized.
“!kcis er’uoy, hO” the girl exclaimed, bending to assist him. She had a nice figure, and her body helped conceal him from the gaze of the demon. But time wavered again as he lost concentration. He corrected that, and the demon retreated on past.
“,uoy evael dluohs I kniht t’nod I” the woman said.
The truth was that he appreciated her help, misguided as it was. He borrowed her pencil and paper. WHAT’S YOUR NAME?
“.agleH ?eman yM”
“Agleh,” he repeated carefully, and she smiled. He was conquering his verbal aphasia!
Agleh took him to her apartment at the edge of the park and made him comfortable on her couch, from where he could see her wall clock. She was perplexed by his being so intent on the clock when he had a watch of his own, but she humored him. She was, it developed, a single girl, working at a local hospital, and this was her day off. She had a tender heart and could not refrain from helping people who were in trouble. He told her his name, Norton, and explained that he wasn’t really sick, but was pursued by demons. She looked at him with increased sympathy and didn’t argue. He wasn’t sure that was a good sign, but let it go.
She offered him breakfast at quarter to seven. Norton tried to demur, but She insisted, certain that food would be good for him. But she had for the moment forgotten the new reality of eating.
She brought dirty dishes from the sink and set them on the table, then sat down and delicately disgorged a poached egg and a glass of milk.
Norton did not eat. He could not, for she had given him nothing. Why should she? She had adjusted nicely to living backward and was replaying in reverse her morning meal; she expected him to do likewise.
Norton sighed. He had not intended to deceive her about this matter or his nature. Words were unlikely to persuade her, so action would have to do.
He took her pristine egg and milk before she could prepare them and return them to her refrigerator, and he consumed them both. They were very good, for he was indeed hungry.
Agleh stared. Then she laughed. “!drawkcab er’uoY” she exclaimed.
“I’m backward,” he agreed.
“?-woH”
He wrote it on her pad. I AM CHRONOS, THE INCARNATION OF TIME. MY LIFE PROCEEDS BACKWARD.
She looked again at the empty dishes, and again at him. She shrugged. “-siht tub ,yad ym ni cigam nees d’l thguoht I” she exclaimed. “!esle gnihtemos er’uoY”
“Sey,” he agreed, again speaking carefully to get it right. He brought out the Hourglass, with its white sand flowing upward, and showed her how the instrument followed him when he set it down in mid-air.
“?taht ees I yaM” she asked.
He handed her the Hourglass-but when she tried to take it, she could not. Her hand passed right through it. To her, it was a ghost-object.
That surprised him as much as it did her. He remembered how the Bern had grabbed it in the globular cluster. Had it been in a different state then?
Agleh looked at the empty dishes. He knew what she was thinking: where had that food come from? She had uneaten it and he had eaten it; when time went forward again, it would be the other way around. When and how was that meal ever prepared?
She glanced again at the shining Hourglass. “... xodaraP” I AM IMMUNE FROM PARADOX, he reassured her in writing. Then, in the course of the next half hour, he clarified his nature for her, including the manner in which his presence changed reality. She was not reversing her life precisely now, for he had not been with her on her forward living through the morning. Now she was living backward, but interacting with him. She could remember her recent future-since meeting him.
“!thgir s’tahT” she exclaimed. “!rebmemer od I”
He explained how he was trying to balk Satan’s ploy, but had run low on willpower to keep the reversal going. Now, thanks to her support, he was doing better; time wasn’t wavering.
I’M IN YOUR REALITY, she wrote, getting it straight. Actually, she put a new sheet of paper on the pad, with the words already there, then went over them from right to left with her pencil, and they disappeared as she did so. When the sheet was blank, she brought another to set over it, with new words. At first she had been startled, watching herself do this, but now she accepted it as a matter of course. Norton realized that his way of writing must appear similarly strange to her.
However, the novelty of this situation carried Norton only so far. The power of the Hourglass was still fading, and it required horrendous mental effort for him to keep time flowing backward. At six-fifteen time wavered again.
Fortunately, Agleh now understood. “!nataS thgif tsum uoY” she said. “.uoy pleh lliw I” Her backward expressions were organized only by phrase or sentence; beyond that, his time frame took over. Probably, he realized, the rest of the world was speaking completely backward; near him, the effect was distorted by his own counterlife. That could also account for the way people seemed to become aware of their situation in his presence; elsewhere they might not know that there had been any change at all. He was sure that his presence would have generated many minor paradoxes, like eddy currents in the contrasting time flows, if he had not been immune.
But he did not see how Agleh could help him, generous as her offer was. He tried to explain the problem: his will had to brace the Hourglass, and his will was giving out.
Her brow furrowed in concentration as he collapsed the Hourglass and put it away. “,emiT” she said. “.emit era yllaer uoY”
CHRONOS, he wrote again. IT IS AN OFFICE.
She glanced at him sidelong. “?nam lamron a era uoy nehT”
“Sey,” he agreed wryly.
“.drawkcab gnivil tuB”
“Sey.”
She wrote again: BUT OUR WILLS ARE THE SAME.
He shrugged, not seeing the relevance.
LET MY WILL SUPPORT YOURS, she wrote.
Norton’s mouth fell open. Was that possible?
They tried it. Norton relaxed his will, and when time wavered, Agleh concentrated on the objective. It worked- but her will was only a fraction as effective as his. She could buttress him, but could not carry the load alone. Still, that was a great help; it extended the period he could operate.
She touched him, putting her hand on his arm, but proximity did not seem to make a difference to the Hourglass. She was doing all she could, simply by sharing his will.
But now they were standing close together. Agleh ran her tongue over her lip. “?ekil eb dluow ti tahw rednow I”
Norton frowned. “What‘ what’would be like? Satan’s victory?”
A slight flush crossed her face. “-wonk uoy-namow a-nam A”
Norton figured it out. A woman-a man. Now it was his turn to blush. One moving in one direction in time; the other, the other. Was it possible?
“,rednow I” she repeated, licking her lips again.
She was a pretty woman, and though he had known her only briefly, he liked her and sincerely appreciated her help. He wondered, too-what would sex be like in such conditions?
But then time wavered badly, the sand shifting back and forth in the Hourglass. Agleh’s support had tided him through almost an hour, but this thought was distracting!
“,emit rehto emoS” Agleh said. She was as quick as he to realize that if her will could support his, it could also detract from his.
“Some other time,” Norton agreed ruefully. He found himself disappointed, but the flow of time did firm again. He benefited from her support-to a degree.
She backed away from him. Then she shrugged and came back. He half-spread his arms, concentrating on the Hourglass so that time would not waver. She came into them with a kind of half-turning motion, as if being reeled in, and slowly brought her face up to meet his. Gradually they kissed, and it was like any other kiss: pleasant but not strange. They were in phase for this.
Time wavered. He concentrated to return the flow. Then he lifted his head and looked at her face for a moment before releasing her. She opened her eyes and stepped away from him.
They had kissed, and it had been backward for at least one of them-and yet the same.
“?efil ruoy ni nemow rehto neeb evah erehT” she asked.
“Other women,” he agreed. “But the one I loved- died.”
“,deiD” she repeated.
“I think she was-like you.”
“.uoy knahT”
“I- “he began, but hesitated. Then he used the paper to explain, though it took a while: that he not only lived backward but didn’t even belong in this period of time; that his normal existence was eight years in her future; that in due course he would return to this present time but would have to hurdle it, so as not to reduplicate himself. Thus this meeting of theirs was all there was or could be. If he encountered her in his normal progress, they would be traveling in opposite directions. There was, literally, no future for them.
But, she inquired alertly, what of his prior life, before he assumed the office of Chronos?
Norton did a quick reassessment. Eight years ago, in his original life, he had been thirty, in one of the duller periods of employment. He had finally given up the mundane existence entirely, to hike the parks and tell stories for his supper. But suppose he had met a woman such as this? Would he then not have met Orlene?
And not have caused Orlene’s death?
“Here is my address of that time,” he said abruptly, writing it out on the paper. If such an encounter turned out to be paradoxical, then it simply wouldn’t occur; he didn’t have to worry about that. “But I’m younger then, and know nothing of my future as Chronos. Maybe it would be better not to tell me.”
“,dnatsrednu I” she agreed.
It was at that point he became fully aware of the futility of trying to have any continuing relationship with a normal woman. He had run up against this with Orlene, but that had been a special case. Now he realized it was not a special case; backward existence prevented any close relationship with any normal person. This was the penalty he paid for his office. Clotho had known, and had provided him with an alternate fulfillment. Clotho understood the problem of the Incarnations, who were human yet unhuman, himself most of all. As another Incarnation, Clotho could handle it. But Agleh-
“,rettel a uoy etirw ll’I” she said.
“A letter, yes,” he agreed, surprised.
“?ti dnes I dluohs erehW”
“Where?” Norton pondered. “To Chronos, I suppose, in care of Purgatory.” Did the mail service deliver mail to Purgatory? It seemed to him that Thanatos had mentioned that it did, in the course of their last conversation. He wrote the address out for her: CHRONOS, c/o PURGATORY. “But I can’t be sure the letter will reach me or that I’ll be able to answer. And if it does reach me, I don’t know when.” Perhaps two years before she wrote it? Reverse time had its pitfalls.
Now it was close to six in the morning. He had come within striking time of his mission. Soon after 5 A.M ....
A.M.-how significant each marker of that had become! A. for Ante, M. for Meridian-before the meridian of noon. A convenient contraction. It had never seemed very important to him before.
But it was time for him to orient on the conclusion of his mission. He had avoided the questing demons-yet how could he reach the right capsule at the key moment without alerting them? They would be clustering close, and though, as an Incarnation, he was theoretically immune to molestation by Hell’s minions, he wasn’t sure they couldn’t balk him on this. After all, he was the one trying to change reality or to unchange it. The advantage probably lay with the present status quo. “,pleh ll’I” Agleh volunteered. Involve her with the minions of Satan? Norton didn’t like that. NO. DANGEROUS, he wrote. WHAT IF SATAN WINS? she wrote back. She had him there. “Hell on Earth,” he muttered. “,htraE no lleH” she repeated. And, on paper: CAN
YOU DO IT ALONE?
Norton considered. Probably he would have to wait till the last moment, then charge in and hope that nothing balked him. It was a one-chance effort. What were his chances for success? Fifty-fifty? With the fate of the world at issue, he did not like that. But how could he improve the odds?
YOU CAN’T, she wrote.
He sighed. She was probably right. But he wasn’t sure how she could help. He certainly didn’t want her getting involved with demons; she was too nice a girl. “I’ll just have to try it by myself,” he told her firmly.
She started to protest, but he was firm. The memory of Orlene and her fate bothered him, and he was determined not to be responsible for any more mischief to a mortal.
Agleh relented reluctantly. She wrote: COME BACK IF-
“I will,” Norton promised, hoping he wouldn’t have to return here. He squeezed her hand and left.
He was getting better at walking backward, though his leg muscles protested. Much could be done with peripheral vision and careful attention to sound. By walking ahead of another person, he could be reasonably certain there were no obstacles in the immediate vicinity, because in forward time he would have been following that person, and the other naturally avoided problems of terrain. In any event, he was now familiar with .this region, and that helped.
His plan was to get as close to the key room as he could without being observed and hide until the proper moment. He would catch the demon just after it changed the capsule-which would be just before in normal time- and douse it with the holy water before it retreated back to its association with his prior self. Of course, that would not prevent it from rejoining him, but that was not the point; this would prevent it from messing with the capsule. If he timed his action precisely, the watching demons from this present time might not be able to balk him.
He backed to the shelter of a tree and paused there as if resting. A bird-dropping jumped up from before him to rejoin its origin; good thing he hadn’t been standing there! The other pedestrians continued on by, retreating toward their homes without paying him any attention. It was early morning now; the sun was no longer beaming down. When he believed no one was watching, Norton backed slantwise across the lawn to another tree, and thence to a side gate into the Senator’s estate. Now he was in a walled in garden, a pleasant place. A child was there, just unpicking a flower; the stem became whole as she placed the severed ends together.
What was she doing here at this hour? The flower wasn’t even open yet; it was waiting for a direct ray of sun.
“,olleh ,hO” she said, becoming aware of Norton.
“Olleh,” he replied, then essayed a question. “Ereh evil uoy od?”
She glanced at him, her brow quirking at his odd pronunciation and emphasis, “.rotisiv a fo rueffuahc eht fo rethguad eht m’l .oN”
Norton found this too much to assimilate, so he just smiled. He wanted to get away from her and into the house. “Gnol os,” he said, beginning to back away nonchalantly.
“!ynnuf er’uoY” she said.
Norton proceeded through the garden, handicapped by its unfamiliarity. He stumbled against the footing for a potted tree. Well, now he was alone; he turned about and walked forward.
A man stepped out before him from an alcove in the estate wall. “.sonorhC”
Norton froze. This man recognized him! “Who-?”
The man only smiled. Then Norton saw his eyes. They were like glassy lenses, with dim red lights behind. Demon eyes!
He had been caught by a demon lurking in human form. Now, in the immediate vicinity of Chronos, the demon could interact somewhat on his terms. “SyortseD” it said and grabbed for Norton.
That was warning enough. Norton let his cloak spread out beyond his suit. The man-demon’s hands aged and weakened as they came into contact with that cloak. Hastily he hauled them back, cursing backward.
“.olleH”
Both men turned. It was the little girl. She had followed Norton, perhaps curious about the odd man.
The demon leaped for her. The girl shrieked but was caught. “!lliK” the demon cried. He drew a wicked-looking knife and held it poised near the child’s face while his other hand held her by the hair.
Norton knew he would not be able to disarm the demon before the girl was stabbed. She was a hostage-and the demon would not hesitate to kill her. True demons were minor incarnations of evil, serving only the major Incarnation.
“What do you want?” Norton asked.
“,ereh yats tsuJ” the demon said.
Stay here-until it was too late-or early-to stop the other demon’s change of the capsule. Or until the last power of the Hourglass gave out. Either way, Satan’s victory. He could not tolerate that.
But if he acted, the child would die. He couldn’t tolerate that either.
Time wavered-and that gave him a notion. He concentrated, or rather relaxed, letting time flow forward.
The demon put away his knife and let the girl go, bounding back to Norton’s vicinity. This time Norton grabbed the demon, his white cloak extended, and held him fast.
The demon screamed. “You’re killing my body!” Indeed, the body was aging. The skin wrinkled; the clothing rotted and fell away. In moments the shriveled body collapsed. It had died of old age.
Norton dropped it. The girl was staring, horror-stricken. “You dried him up!” she cried.
“I had to. He was going to hurt you.”
“Say-you don’t talk funny any more!” Norton remembered. He concentrated, reversing time again. It was like picking up a monstrous load after inadequate respite.
“!erom yna ynnuf klat t’nod uoy-yaS” the girl exclaimed.
Norton took her by the arm and led her away. He knew the demon, now separated from the ambience of Chronos, would not recover-except that that execution would be undone by the resumed retreat of time. Avoidance was therefore best.
“!pu mih deird uoY” the girl cried, horrified.
Something nagged at Norton. It was the demon’s last cry: “You’re killing my body!” Of course that was literally true; a demon could not take physical form on Earth. Only in very special circumstances did that happen. The demons he had seen before were mere evil spirits, with no substance. This one had had substance-because it had taken possession of a living being.
That meant the demons could act physically here. They could not hurt him, Norton-but they could harm others. That made Norton vulnerable. They could take hostages.
This was too much for him to handle alone. He had dispatched one demon-or at least sent it back to Hell by destroying its living host-but he couldn’t afford to chance that again. He had rescued the child, but there were too many other potential victims, and he knew that the minions of Satan would use them. He didn’t worry about destroying the living hosts, for he knew that a demon could enter a human body only when invited, and that only the worst elements of society would ever do that inviting. But he couldn’t stand to have the blood of one innocent victim on his conscience.
“Go home,” he urged the girl. “Find your family and get far away from here. Fast. There is evil afoot.”
Wordlessly, the child nodded. Then she ran, taking off backward so fast her hair flung out behind her head, in the direction of her flight.
Norton, reluctantly, returned to Agleh. “You were right,” he admitted. “I can’t handle it alone. Those demons are taking possession of human bodies and they are unscrupulous. But I’m still not at all certain you can help, and I don’t want to risk- “
She waved aside his incomprehensible explanation.
TELL ME THE DETAILS, she Wrote.
His eye fell on his ring. “Okay, Sning?” he asked.
Squeeze.
“She can really help?”
Squeeze.
Agleh pointed to the ring. “?cigaM” she asked. “Cigam,” he agreed. And explained briefly about Sning. “?pleh I nac woh ,gninS” she asked the ring.
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
“He can’t answer that sort of question,” Norton explained. Then, on paper: YES-NO ANSWERS ONLY. “.yrroS .hO” She considered for a moment, then wrote:
CAN SNING HELP?
Squeeze. It seemed Sning could read.
Norton was startled. “Directly? Physical action?”
Squeeze.
Time was running short. Together they worked out a campaign. The problem, Sning explained when they found the correct questions, was that demons could emulate human beings by taking possession of human hosts. The minions of Satan could no longer be readily distinguished from innocent people. Norton and Agleh had to find a simple way to tell humans and demons apart, so that they could leave the former alone and eliminate or avoid the latter.
Sning’s poison could make a human being very sick, but should have no effect on a true demon, since that was only a spirit. The spirit demons were patrolling the area, trying to spot Chronos, while the demon-possessed bodies were acting to block him physically. There was no telling how many of each there were, but probably enough to do the job. Satan would have sent in the largest number immediately after the capsule was changed, as that was the critical moment; the network six hours after the event had been relatively thin.
Norton had presumed that the possessed people were worshipers of Satan, doomed to Hell and not worth his sympathy. But now he wondered: could demons somehow borrow the bodies of good people too? Sning reassured him; they could not. Goodness was anathema to the creatures of Hell. But his concern about the hostaging of innocent people in the area was valid, Sning agreed. Only the Senator himself was free of that threat, as Satan would not harm the man whose life he was trying to save for worse things.
Norton couldn’t tell the innocents from the possessed, at a distance, and he couldn’t afford to get up close without knowing. How could he identify the possessed ahead of time and get by them?
“The regular demons are really thickening,” Norton remarked, glancing out the window. “There’s one patrolling the street now.”
Agleh looked. “?erehW”
He pointed. “There.”
She squinted, “.gnihtyna ees t’nod I”
The demon was quite plain. Sning squeezed three times. “You mean she can’t see it?” Norton asked, startled.
Squeeze.
He turned to her. “There’s a spirit demon there-but you can’t see it.”
“,ti ees t’nac I” she agreed.
“But there is one there. Sning can tell you.”
She looked doubtful, so Sning uncurled and crossed to Agleh’s waiting hand. Like Orlene, she was not afraid of small serpents.
“!etuc woh ,hO” she exclaimed.
Sning curled around one of her fingers. “Ask him a yes-no question,” Norton said.
“?ereht nomed a ereht sI” she asked. Then she jumped. “!em dezeeuqs eH”
“How many times?”
“,ecnO” she said, holding up one finger.
“That means yes. Sey.”
“.ees I ,hO” She was pleased. “!mih peek dluoc I hsiw I”
Keep Sning? “Well, you might borrow him-so you can spot the demons. I can see them without Sning’s help.” That seemed to be another power conferred on him by the mantle of Chronos.
“,seY” she agreed.
Now it jelled. Agleh and Sning would scout the Senator’s estate, locating all the demons and possessed people. The minions of Satan would not suspect them, because Agleh was obviously a normal person, not an Incarnation. She would report to Norton, who would then move in to the capsule at the critical time, avoiding the pre-spotted demons. Sning would warn Agleh of any threat to her. With luck, there would be no trouble, and the deed would be done before Satan knew it.
Then at last Norton would be able to relax. He could return to his own time-and never see Agleh again. That he regretted; these few hours had brightened when she appeared.
He knew he shouldn’t, but he asked her anyway, on the paper: DO YOU LIKE WILDERNESS?
She replied: I LOVE IT.
Why did he torment himself?
“!og s’teL” she said briskly, heading for the door.
Norton started to go with her, then stopped. He couldn’t show his face near the Senator’s estate until they had the demons posted. “I’ll wait here,” he said somewhat lamely.
“,eyB” she agreed and backed out.
Norton watched at the window as she went out on the lighted street. The demon was still patrolling, but paid Agleh no attention. He relaxed slightly; it was working!
He watched Agleh out of sight, then paced restlessly. The woman had passed the demon, and that was good- but now he wondered just how many of Satan’s minions in whatever form mingled with the living human beings regularly. Did the Prince of Evil normally keep an eye on the affairs of the mundane world? How could any person ever be sure that evil was not just around the corner? It was a disquieting notion.
The clock on the wall wavered, and he refocused his concentration; he was tiring, or the Hourglass was, and now that he had nothing to rev him up, it was becoming more difficult to keep the reverse flow going. He seemed to have periods when it went automatically and periods when it required all his effort. But he felt his resources giving out; it was as if he had been driving all night or running all day. He had only an hour to go, but now it seemed like more than the time that had passed.
He continued to pace, fighting to maintain control, but the clock wavered more frequently. He no longer had Agleh’s direct support of will; maybe that was making a difference. He was in danger of giving the victory to Satan by default.
Now he wondered: was it really worth the effort? Would it be all that bad if Satan won? It would be so easy just to let it slide, to let the normal flow of time resume. He realized his attitude was similar to that of a freezing man who just wanted to sleep-a sleep that would never end- but somehow he didn’t care. He was so tired; his will was exhausted.
He relaxed, heedless of the changing of the clock. He sank into a chair, his eyes glazing. This apartment reminded him of Orlene’s-she who had loved her baby too well and died of it, because of the evil in the family genes of Gawain the Ghost. That evil, traveling down the lineage, taking its dreadful toll of each generation. Where had it originated? Where would it end?
Evil? It had, of course, originated with the Prince of Evil. It would end there, too. From Evil came evil, and to Evil it returned. Without the Demon of Evil, the DEvil, the Devil, it would not exist, for he was the Incarnation of it. From him and to him-
Something coalesced. The evil that had been responsible for Orlene’s death-it had had to come from Satan!
Suddenly Norton was up and alert. Satan had cost him Orlene-and he owed Satan for that. Now he had a chance to repay the Prince of Evil by foiling this present mischief.
The flow of time reversed again. The clock resumed its backward march. Norton knew he would make it through now. Hate would accomplish what duty could not.
At 5:25 A.M. Agleh returned. “!lla meht dettops evah eW” she exclaimed. And she grabbed pen and paper and sketched a map, showing both spirits and possessed by marking their locations with little S’s and P’s.
Just in time! “I’ve got to get into that building soon.” Norton said, aware that she could not follow all his backward words, but would pick up the sense of them. “I need to know every demon!”
“lufrednow saw gninS” she said, perfecting the map.
Norton studied the pattern of S’s and P’s. “But if they’re moving, they won’t be in the same places,” he said, concerned.
She figured this out. “,staeb klaw yehT” she explained, sketching in light lines to mark territories, “.htrof dna kcaB”
“Oh.” Walking beats-yes, of course. So there would be fair continuity. All he had to do was time his passage. It was like a maze or a video game; if he maneuvered deftly enough, he should score.
He concentrated on the map, aligning the details with what he knew of the region, memorizing the pattern. It wasn’t difficult; there were only six possessed and six spirits, and his fatigue of will was not fatigue of mind. Six and six-of course. 666 was Satan’s personal number. But where was the third six?
Well, he judged that he could make the run in about six minutes. Maybe he’d better plan on that. It might have the effect of completing Satan’s number, so that there would be no infernal alarm. The period of backward time was also scheduled for six hours. One way or another, it matched.
Six minutes-that would leave him no margin for error. Any significant delay would cost him the mission. But as he pondered it, he became more certain this was the key. Play it by Satan’s rules-and Satan’s defeat would be complete.
He explained this to Agleh, writing out essential words to be sure she had it straight. “,uoy htiw og ll’I” she said.
“I don’t think that’s wise. You’ve been there, scouting it. If the demons see you again, so close to the zero hour, they’ll be alerted.”
“,rebmemer t’now yehT” she pointed out.
“They won’t remember,” he repeated thoughtfully. But he wasn’t sure of that. Most people seemed hardly aware of their backward progress, but the ones in his immediate vicinity were, and those ones had backward memory, as Agleh herself did. Also, these were not people, but Satan’s demons and spirits, assigned to watch for him. If Agleh was seen with him now, the demons might manage to remember backward just enough to make trouble.
He pointed this out to her. Reluctantly, she agreed. Then she brightened. “!noisrevid a trats ll’I” she said.
A diversion. That could indeed make it easier for him- but it would be risky for her.
“Itsisni I” she said.
He looked at his watch. Time was shortening; his final six minutes were almost upon him. He didn’t have time to argue.
“,pleh lliw gninS” she said, holding up her hand with Sning.
He had forgotten to take the little serpent back! But it was true; Sning could be a big help to her, since the little snake could detect invisible spirits. Norton could recover his ring once the mission was done. “Okay,” he said with some misgiving.
“!yakO” she echoed. She gave him another kiss somewhat less backward; she was getting used to these interactions.
It was time. They moved out smartly. Agleh set out ahead to intercept the first possessed. Sning would signal her if she needed to distract the man; if not, she would simply proceed to the second, in effect running interference. Norton followed more slowly, trying to look like a casual passer-by.
The problem was that they both had to walk backward, so he couldn’t see what happened to Agleh. He just had to assume that his way would be open, thanks to her and Sning.
He entered the first possessed’s beat and backed through it without challenge. This was on the main street, and normal people were occasionally passing-early risers catching the local matter-mitter before the throng. He hoped he seemed like one of them. It was working-so far.
Now he was entering the beat of a spirit. According to his estimate, the spirit should be at the far side of it, facing away, so wouldn’t see him. Sure enough-he spied the spirit’s tail as the creature backed toward him. He schooled himself to make no overt reaction; that would be a giveaway, since ordinary people could not see such creatures. Of course the spirit would recognize him anyway, if it turned and saw him-but it was unlikely to turn, because of the regularity of its beat. Evil spirits, as he understood it, did not have much imagination or initiative. Only strange behavior on his part would cause them to break their routine-such as reacting to the sight of one.
He reached the estate. Though there were twelve of Satan’s minions on patrol, they were not all in one place; they were spread fairly thin through and about the estate, to cover all of it. They knew he would exploit any gap in their coverage. He had only three to worry about along this route, and now he had navigated two. The third was another spirit in the hall beyond the side entrance. He probably could not avoid that one-but with only two minutes remaining till zero-time, maybe that one could not spread the alarm in time to do Satan much good. This was the chancy part!
He opened the door behind him and backed in. This was a servants’entrance, and there weren’t many servants about at this early hour. Norton turned and proceeded forward; it was more comfortable, and he knew he would not fool the spirit anyway. He moved through the labyrinth of the servants’region, guessing where the spirit would be and avoiding that region.
He guessed wrong. The spirit appeared, did a double take, and fled through the wall. Norton was not reassured. Ninety seconds remained-was it too much time? Could the spirit summon overwhelming counterforce before zero moment? Had he given Satan too much leeway?
He entered the pantry where the bottle of capsules was stored. No spirit guarded it now; he had spooked that one away. He looked at the bottle-
There were six homed, barbtailed feline creatures there. Hellcats-that was the final complement of the 666!
The Hellcats spied him and snarled. They formed a semicircle near the shelf of the capsule, tails switching. Each had saber-toothed tusks and great blood red claws. They looked deadly.
But this was Earth, not Hell, Norton reminded himself. No true Hellcats existed here. These had to be spirit cats, powerless against any living person physically, and impotent against Chronos in any way. They represented another lie from the Father of Lies, a bluff to confuse Chronos. All they could do was attempt to distract him-and that would fail.
One minute. He was early after all, but he would prevail.
Then he heard approaching noises. Was the original capsule demon arriving? Norton brought out his vial of holy water and stood ready. The demon would have to be given the chance to unhex the capsule; then Norton had to douse it.
Figures appeared. Norton stared, stunned. A possessed-and Agleh. They had taken her hostage!
The possessed held the woman’s right arm wrenched cruelly behind her, while his left hand clasped a gleaming knife menacing her face. “!seid ehS” he grunted eagerly.
Norton held the holy water. He could throw it at the pair of them; it would not hurt Agleh, but it would banish the evil spirit from the possessed man. One flick of his wrist-
“!ti od t’noD” Agleh cried, divining his intent.
Angrily the possessed brought the knife to her neck. She caught at his hand with her left hand, but she had neither his strength nor his leverage. “!seid ehS” he repeated.
Norton stared at those two hands-his big hairy one, clasping the wicked knife; her delicate fair one with Sning on the middle finger. Now he understood the ploy; if he used the holy water to save Agleh, he would not have it to foil the capsule demon, and Satan would win. But if he did not save Agleh-
He heard something to his side. The six impotent Hellcats had vanished, and in their place was a coalescing cloud of smoke. In seconds it cleared, revealing a tiny solid demon with a single large horn. This was the capsule demon.
The possessed made an incoherent grunt and nudged the blade in to touch Agleh’s throat. Norton couldn’t let her die!
Then he had an inspiration. “Sning!” he cried.
Immediately the little snake uncoiled and struck at the adjacent hand of the possessed. The tiny fangs sank into the hairy skin. The man grunted, feeling the sting.
Norton turned to watch the capsule demon. The thing was standing below the capsule bottle. Suddenly it rose up to land on the shelf. It touched the bottle, and there was a small flash of light. Then the demon began to climb down the shelving. The hex had been undone.
Norton hurled the holy water at the little demon. The water struck-and the demon puffed into smoke, exactly as before-but a critical minute earlier in normal time.
He turned back to Agleh and the possessed. The man was leaning against the wall, bafflement on his face. Agleh stood alone, massaging her sore right arm, otherwise all right.
Norton relaxed. “It’s over,” he said. “The demon no longer possesses the man, and my mission is complete.”
“I thought it was a good deal,” the unpossessed muttered. “But when that evil spirit actually took control- God! I mean that literally-I’m turning to God, while there’s still time!”
“It’s over,” Agleh agreed. Time was now normal; they were all talking comprehensibly.
Then she vanished. Norton stood alone in the deserted and dusty house. What had happened?
In a moment he knew. He was back in his present. The power of the Hourglass had been exhausted, causing him to revert when his will no longer supported the fading magic of the instrument. Or it might be that when he tried to live in normal time flow, allowing himself to be carried along by the world current, he had run afoul of the three person barrier and been bounced out. Either way, it was over, and he had foiled Satan.
He looked at his bare hand. With a shock he realized that he had lost Sning. Agleh had been wearing him when it happened. Sning had saved her by poisoning the possessed and forcing the evil spirit to leave. Apparently the spirit had thought the man was going to die, so had instantly deserted the sinking ship-and there had been no chance for her to give the ring back to Norton. She had intended to, but his sudden return had prevented it.
Norton sighed. That was a telling loss! But he missed Agleh, too. She had loyally helped him, and must have been chagrined when he deserted her so abruptly.
Well, perhaps it was only fair for her to retain a token of the experience. Chronos was gone, but Sning would comfort her.
Norton left the deserted estate, feeling lonely. On impulse he walked to Agleh’s apartment-but found the neighborhood changed. In the intervening eight years the oasis of primitive life had been abolished, having no regressive Senator to preserve it. The building had been replaced by a warehouse. He could not find her or anything of hers there.
He used the Hourglass to return to his mansion in Purgatory. The instrument performed sluggishly; it was tired. So was he; the success of his mission provided him little elation.
He checked his mailbox. There was a single package in it, a small one. He opened it immediately, curious what anyone would send to Chronos-and discovered Sning!
A brief note was enclosed, in feminine script. Chronos- I couldn’t keep Sning; he’s yours. He told me this would reach you. Best wishes, Helga.
Norton stared at the message until it blurred. What a fine woman! Was there no way he could thank her?
Sning uncoiled, slid across his hand, and curled around his finger. Squeeze.
The separation had been brief, in Norton’s terms, but eight years in another sense and an eternity emotionally. “Oh, Sning, I’m so glad to have you back! You say I can thank Agleh?”
Right there, in the Twenty Questions fashion, Sning told him. All he had to do was make a quick trip to a moment just before his interaction with her time and mail her a letter-Sning had the address, which he could explicate by squeezing as Norton pointed to letters and numbers on a sheet of paper-that would reach her after their separation. Theoretically, the mails were magically enhanced to give one-day service, but in practice it was seldom so; there would be no paradox of premature delivery. He could even make it a package, containing some suitable gift that would please her.
“Yes,” Norton agreed. Suddenly he felt much more positive. He would shop for an appropriate gift; Sning would help.
He glanced once more at the note before putting it away. Best wishes, Helga.
Helga-her name forward, of course.
Now he remembered; he had known Helga in his younger days, while still employed within the system. She had come to him, inquiring, “Haven’t we met before?” And he had been so flattered by the come-on from such a pretty and sensible woman that he had not demurred. They had kept company for a couple of years before the exigencies of his wanderlust and her professional nursing career had required an amicable separation. She had been his dearest female friend, prior to Orlene, and he felt a lingering fondness as he thought of her, even these six years later.
Odd that he hadn’t thought about her before, or recognized her when he encountered her in his guise of Chronos. Obviously she had remembered him, thereafter, though she hadn’t said so.
Odd? No, not odd at all! He had not known her in his first existence; she had been added to his experience as Chronos. His past had been changed-without paradox.
Ironic that he should have that wonderful experience of her company only in memory, not in reality. Yet for her, surely, it had been fully real, and perhaps that had been her reward for helping him balk Satan. She had kept his secret, too; never had she mentioned Chronos, or spoken any backward word.
He still owed her. He would send her a really nice gift.
Whistling, he walked on into his mansion.
QUEST
“You have a caller, sir,” the butler informed him.
“I’m not at home to callers at the moment,” Norton said. “I’ve just had a very wearing session; the Hourglass and I must rest.”
“Sir, he will not be denied. He is angry.”
Norton paused. “Satan? I’m not surprised. All right, I’ll tell him to go to Hell myself.”
The Prince of Evil was literally fuming. A haze of sulfur smoke surrounded him, and his horns were showing. “You interfered with My demons!” He rasped, a small tongue of fire showing at his lips as he spoke.
“They interfered with my business,” Norton said curtly. “Now you get out of my mansion; I have no use for you.”
“You are messing up My whole program!”
“Good for me! I don’t like being deceived or used for evil purpose.”
“I will have satisfaction!” Satan said, his eyes flaming as he drew off one of his red gloves. He did not look at all benign now!
But Norton was fed up. “Go to Hell!”
Fire puffed out of Satan’s ears. He raised his fist to Norton, clenching his glove.
Norton extended his white cloak. “Hit me,” he invited.
“No,” Satan snarled past lengthening tusks. He was enraged, but not foolish; he knew the defense of Time. Instead he hurled his glove directly at Norton’s face. “You will go-without return!”
Norton ducked the glove, though he knew it couldn’t hurt him. But it puffed into smoke, and the smoke surrounded him. He could see nothing. He stepped to the side, out of it.
He found himself on a green planet, looking at a Glob spaceship. He was back in the antimatter cluster!
“Damn it, how does he do that?” Norton demanded. “I didn’t ask to come here again!”
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
Norton chuckled grimly. “Well, at least I have you with me, Sning! Do you know how I can return promptly home?”
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
“You’re not sure? But I understood Satan couldn’t do anything to me without my consent.”
Squeeze.
“But I didn’t consent to this!”
Squeeze, squeeze.
That made him pause. Was Sning agreeing or disagreeing? “You say I did consent, tacitly?”
Squeeze.
“This time you’re wrong, Sning! What could possibly interest me here?”
Then he spied a shape in the air. He squinted, and discovered a winged unicorn bearing a lovely young woman. Excelsia on the Alicorn, both looking splendid, coming here.
Squeeze.
Norton sighed. “Point made,” he agreed ruefully. Excelsia was a lovely young woman with whom he could interact on a continuing basis, since her time flow matched his. That did indeed appeal to him! “This must be the Magic-Lantern Cloud, instead of the globular cluster- as good a place to relax as any.”
Squeeze, squeeze.
“You say no? You mean Satan is up to something new?”
Squeeze.
“And he figures to keep me here so he can perform his mischief without my opposition?”
Squeeze.
“Then I’d better return immediately!”
“Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
The Alicorn landed. Excelsia bounced off and ran toward him. Her gown this time was filmy white and low-cut, and she was better endowed than he had realized;
Norton found that run fascinating. “O Sir Norton!” she panted, her bosom heaving prettily. “I never thanked you properly for your valiant assistance-and when I returned, you were gone! I have searched all over the planet for you!”
“Well, I- “
She reached him and flung her arms about him. “Now at last I have found you!” She planted a delightful kiss on his mouth. He felt as if his feet were leaving the ground. “Thank you so much!” she breathed.
“You’re welcome,” he said. What an armful she was! “But I regret I must depart, because- “
Her pretty face misted over. “Depart?”
“There is pressing business back on Earth, and- “
Two big, shining tears formed in her lovely eyes. “But, Sir Norton, I have so much to show you!”
He gulped. How much he wanted to see what she had to show! But he had learned the hard way not to ignore Satan’s mischief. “Uh, can I take a rain check?”
“A rain check!” she flared. There was a crack of thunder nearby, and rain began to threaten from a ballooning gray cloud.
Excelsia wrenched herself from his arms and fled toward her steed. “You can have a deluge for all I care, sirrah!”
Norton ran after her, sadly out of sorts. “Wait, Excelsia! I didn’t mean it like that! It’s just that- “
She reached the Alicorn, who brought his horn about to bear directly on Norton. Norton drew up short, not comfortable with that, though probably this creature could not hurt him. He didn’t want to hurt the Alicorn, either.
“I’m sure you don’t need to explain yourself to me,” Excelsia said primly. “Go on home right now, sirrah, and I wish the other woman good fortune hunting!”
“There is no other woman!” Norton protested. But it occurred to him that, had Agleh been in his time frame, she would have been an excellent prospect; indeed, in the past she had been-well, never mind that. And of course he still felt love for Orlene, and there was always Clotho, the one who really understood, so he wasn’t being quite candid.
“Then you will stay?” Excelsia said, brightening.
How much harm could there be in a short stay? He had wanted to rest for a while, anyway.
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Shut up!” Norton snapped guiltily.
“Well!” Excelsia said, affronted.
“No, I didn’t mean you!” Norton protested, taking a step toward her. But the Alicorn snorted and leveled his horn again, stopping that. “I was talking to Sning!”
The Damsel frowned attractively. “I remember Sning, the good adviser and strange steed. Does he tell you I be not good enough for you, sirrah?”
“No, of course not! He tells me there will be great trouble back on Earth if I don’t return at once.”
She mollified. “Then perchance you must go. Sir Norton. I regret my dainty outburst of temper. I will wait somewhat patiently for your return.”
Would Satan ever let him come back here, after he had once again balked whatever mischief Satan was hatching now? Norton brushed that thought aside. “Thank you,” he said gratefully. “I really wish I could be with you right now, but it must be duty before pleasure.” He concentrated, willing himself home.
Nothing happened. Excelsia watched him with curiosity. “Belike you have mislaid your way?”
Norton realized that he had never made this trip on his own volition; Satan had conducted him each way. He didn’t know how to return! “I seem to have done that,” he admitted, abashed.
The space-blob had been sitting quiescently all this time. Now it irised open a wart. A man emerged. It was Bat Dursten. “Say, get a glimmer o’that there Femme!” he exclaimed.
The little Bern followed the spaceman out. It had grown some, but remained cute as a bug eye. It changed into a wheeled robot in the shape of a motorcycle. Dursten mounted, and the robot-Bem-cycle churned across to join the party.
The Alicorn reared with alarm, spreading his wings. “What manner of thing be this?” Excelsia demanded, drawing her knife.
The Bemcycle angled its faceted headlamp to cover them as it proceeded. “Uh, it’s okay,” Norton said quickly. “It’s just Bat Dursten, spaceman galore. And his Bern.”
Her fair brow wrinkled with perplexity. “Bum?”
“Bern. An acronym for Bug-Eyed-Monster.”
Dursten arrived and jumped off his vehicle. “Bemme,” he clarified. “She’s a Femme-Bem.‘ Course, she’s still young, not for messing with-but ain’t she pretty?”
The little Bemme shifted back to normal form, a blob with tentacles and huge insectoid eyes.
Excelsia screamed, and the Alicorn snorted fire.
Norton hastily interposed himself. “They’re from the space opera frame,” he said-and paused. “How can that be? This is the heroic fantasy frame!”
“Fantasy, shmantasy!” Dursten exclaimed. “We got caught in a space warp and woof and had to make landfall on the closest green planet, to give the ship a chance to repair itself.” He nodded toward the blob. “These Bemballs look like rotten eggs, but they’re not bad when you get to know‘ em. They can pretty well take care o’themselves, given half a chance. But what in space are you doing here, pardner? Last time I saw you, you’d vanished. I figured the Genius‘ ported you away.”
“Close enough,” Norton said. “Now I’ve been, uh, teleported here. But this is a fantasy world you’ve landed on, where magic works, just as it does on my home world of Earth. Excelsia and I had quite an adventure- “
Bat eyed the woman. “Yeah, I’ll bet. Man, I’d shore like to take that there Femme myself and- “
“Go eat a slimeblob, you utter cretin!” Excelsia snapped.
“Listen, you bare-boobed broad!” Bat retorted. “I don’t take no shipment from- “
“All a misunderstanding,” Norton cut in before things could proceed to mayhem. Already the Bemme and the Alicorn were squaring off, loyal to their associates. The Alicorn had lowered his horn, while the Bemme had assumed the form of a giant pencil sharpener. “You’re from two different worlds- “
The Bemme sprouted an eyeball on a stem and squinted at him. “Three different worlds,” Norton corrected himself. “Naturally, conventions differ. We have to be tolerant.”
Excelsia shrugged gracefully. “Very well, since you ask it. Sir Norton. I can tolerate the presence of a cretin when absolutely necessary.”
The spaceman grinned. “And I sort of go for bare bo- “
“Agreed!” Norton interrupted. “If you will just explain to the creatures.”
“Certainly,” Excelsia said. “Bemme, if you can get along with that spacelout, I’m sure we females can- “
“Shore,” Dursten agreed. “Alicorn, if a horny horsehead like you can put up with that dizzy Femme, you and me can shore- “
But already the Alicorn and the Bemme were making up. She was batting huge faceted eyes at him and he was snorting an appreciative puff of smoke.
“Maybe you can help me. Bat,” Norton said, relaxing. “I need to return home in a hurry, but I don’t know how. Do you think you could contact a Genius and inquire?”
“Why, shore,” the spaceman agreed laconically, glancing again at Excelsia’s décolletage. “You can ship right home, and I’ll take that there doll and...”
Excelsia huffed up to make an angry response, almost bursting out of her gown, but again Norton intercepted it. “And I’ll return when my job on Earth is done.”
“That, too,” Dursten agreed without complete enthusiasm.
They proceeded to the blob spaceship. The Bemme assumed the form of a petite female Alicorn and trotted along beside the real one, exchanging snickers.
Excelsia was fascinated and somewhat awed by the ship. “What magic mirror be this?” she inquired as the vidscreen lighted.
“Magic mirror!” Dursten echoed. “That’s great!”
The Bemme was showing the Alicorn the food synthesizer, producing delicious alfalfa hay for the animals to munch on.
The head of a Genius appeared on the screen. “Yes?” the wizened entity inquired.
“Ooo, a goblin!” Excelsia murmured with distaste.
“My friend Norton here did dang good service for you, and you never paid him,” Dursten said. “Now he needs a little- “
“We do not exchange favors,” the Genius said coldly. “We are strictly business.”
“Maybe we can do business, then,” Norton said. “All I need is some advice.”
The veined eyeballs swiveled to orient on him. Norton felt his hair getting hot. Quickly he extended his cloak ambience and was cool. The Genius’orbs widened a trifle. “You counter my power?”
“I’m not from your cluster,” Norton explained. “You should have that information in your records, from my last visit with spaceman Dursten.”
“Records are suspect. You may be a Bern agent. You do occupy an alien ship.”
“Captured,” Dursten said quickly. “No Bems here.”
The cruel eyes flicked to cover the Bemme. “What is that?”
“That ain’t no Bern,” Dursten insisted. Fortunately, the Bemme had retained her little Alicorn marc form in order to chew on the hay.
The Genius’eyes narrowed. Behind his back, Dursten made a signal. The Bemme jumped in the air, did a somersault, and landed on her back, shuddering and lying still.
“Oh, the poor thing!” Excelsia exclaimed, hurrying to the Bemme. She shot an angry glance at the Genius. “You mean goblin, you killed her with a spell!”
“Ixnay,” Dursten muttered under his breath.
Unmoved, the Genius returned his gaze to Norton. “Business?”
Norton was appalled by the creature’s callousness, but he knew he could not afford to pass up any chance to return to Earth before Satan completed his mischief. “I need to go back to my own world promptly. Can you transport me there, or tell me how to return on my own?”
“I am unable to read your mind,” the Genius said, as if this were a defect in the subject. It seemed the cloak of time protected Norton from this form of psi power, too. “Where is your world?”
“It’s in the terrene section of the galaxy. Time moves forward there-the reverse of yours. It’s called Earth.”
The Genius frowned. “Let me check our listing... yes, Earth is as you describe. A backward planet on the periphery of the main disk. It is fifty-seven thousand light-years distant. That would represent a considerable expenditure of psychic energy.”
“That must be why I can’t get there myself,” Norton agreed.
“You will have to perform an equivalent service for me.”
“Well, I can try,” Norton said cautiously.
“You are currently on the fantasy world of (‘. The Evil Sorceress resides there.”
“Not any more,” Norton said. “We destroyed her.”
“Destruction is seldom permanent in the magic realms.” But the Genius checked his records again. “True, you did discomfit her for two hours. She recovered, but during that period of incapacity she suffered certain losses.”
“The Alicorn,” Norton said.
“And the nefarious null-psi amulet that prevents us from following her activities. Her more powerful sister, the Eviler Sorceress, now possesses it. Fetch me that amulet.”
A Sorceress worse than the one he had encountered? Norton didn’t like that. “That sounds risky to me! She would hardly give up such a prize voluntarily.”
“True. That is my price for your return to Earth.”
“But it could take me a long time to get such a thing, if I didn’t get slimed on the way!”
“I suggest you move expeditiously.”
Norton sighed. What an uncompromising tyrant! “I’ll try.”
The owlish head faded out. Dursten turned off the screen. “Okay, Bemme,” he said.
The Bemme recovered instantly, flipping back onto her hooves, startling Excelsia. “You were pretending!” the Damsel exclaimed.
“Shore, I taught her tricks, like how to play dead,” Dursten said cheerily. “Figured it’d come in handy someday. Shore faked out the Genius, didn’t it!”
Excelsia’s brow furrowed. “But why?”
“Why else, twit? So the Genius don’t catch on she’s immune to psi, that’s why.”
Norton remembered. “Geniuses can’t touch Bems! That’s why they hire mercenaries to do it!”
“Shore,” the spaceman agreed. “If he’d zapped her, and it bounced, he’da known. So she played possum, and he figured she was a normal critter.”
“But you told him no Bems were here- “
“Right. Bems are male. Didn’t say nothin’‘bout Bemmes.”
Norton realized that Dursten was more canny than he looked. He had indeed saved the Bemme from discovery and thus enabled Norton to deal. “I thought you didn’t like Bems,” he said, aware that an exception had been made.
“Well, I know this one,” the spaceman said, embarrassed. “She’s an orphan, you know, and a good kid. Real smart, too.”
There, of course, was the secret to peace; people did not hurt creatures they knew well. Strangers were fair game, but not associates. “It seems I’ve got a chore to do,” Norton said. “Anyone happen to know where the castle of the Eviler Sorceress is?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t want to go there!” Excelsia protested.
“I’ve just got to get that amulet-the sooner the better. So if you’ll tell me where the castle is, I’ll be on my way.”
“Only a heroic fool would brave the Eviler Sorceress in her lair!” the Damsel warned, wringing her hands.
“Surely so.”
“I can’t let you go alone. Sir Norton,” she said, troubled. “I will go with you.”
“Aw, shucks, I’ll come too,” Dursten said then, skuffling his feet. “You helped me afore, after all.”
“But it may be dangerous,” Norton reminded them. “I don’t want you to take such a risk on my behalf.”
“You helped us, we’ll help you,” Excelsia said, her marvelous bosom heaving with emotion. “It’s only right.”
“Yeah,” Dursten agreed, his eyes goggling with each heave.
“Thank you both,” Norton said, moved.
Excelsia described the locale, and Dursten piloted the Bemship there, circling the planet and setting down outside the castle. The Damsel was suitably impressed with the strange flying vehicle, but the Alicorn snorted with something like jealousy.
The abode of the Eviler Sorceress was a gloomy thing, with dark turrets, a dismal moat, and a wolf baying at the wall. A plaque over the front gate proclaimed: ABANDON HOPE.
Norton gulped. “Well, thanks, folks,” he said. “I’ll take it from here.”
Excelsia looked at the castle. Her fair features seemed greenish at the moment. “I’ll-I will go with you, Sir Norton,” she said with tremulous bravery.
“Shucks, me too,” Dursten said, though he looked none too confident himself. Perhaps he had hoped the Damsel would let Norton go alone. “I don’t hold with none o’this fantasy shimmer nohow.”
“I really appreciate this,” Norton said, feeling even more grateful than before. Satan had once assured him that he faced no genuine personal danger here, but now Satan was angry. “The Alicorn and the Bemme can wait in the spaceship- “
The Alicorn snorted. “He’s coming too,” Excelsia said.
The Bemme became a small humanoid robot. “Me too,” the screen face said, the screen showing a small feminine mouth.
“But you two aren’t even human!” Norton protested. “You have no call to risk your lives for us!”
The Alicorn made a series of snorts. “He says the Latins called him Cornu, horn, before they ever saw the rest of him,” Excelsia translated. “The Italians added the article, calling him Licorne, the horn. The Arabs added their article, calling him Alicorno, THE horn. Now he is the Alicorn, and he says he has associated with human beings as long as human beings have existed-maybe longer. That is, with those who know the magic word to tame him temporarily. You have no authority to tell him not to associate now. He can use his horn to detoxify much of the poison of the Eviler Sorceress.”
“Well,” the Bemme robot spoke up, “my kind has fought the bone-fleshed kind ever since our two species went to space and discovered the delights of interstellar war. We even named your kind: MAN.”
“You did?” Norton asked, surprised.
“Of course. MAN-an acronym.” The mouth on the screen quirked with obscure humor.
“Oh? What do the letters stand for?”
“Multi-Appendaged-Numbskull, of course. Every creature who is worthy of the title of sapience knows that.”
“What?” Dursten exclaimed indignantly. “It can’t be that!”
The Bemme fidgeted, and the screen mouth frowned. “I did clean it up a little for mixed company.” Two eyes formed on the screen, glancing at the Alicorn.
“What’s the danged original?” the spaceman demanded.
“Mucky-Arsed- “
“We’d better get moving,” Norton said quickly.
Dursten hesitated, then decided to let the acronym pass. After all, he had asked for it.
They advanced on the drear castle. This one, like the other, was wide open for entry, as if daring strangers to try it. These Evil Sorceresses were entirely too confident! The other one had nearly finished Norton; only Sning’s intercession had saved him.
That reminded him. “Am I doing the right thing, Sning?”
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
He didn’t like that answer. It meant he could go either way, and he wanted to go the correct way. “Is it right to seek the null-psi amulet?”
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
How he wished Sning could talk to him directly! “Well, warn me when I start to go wrong.”
Squeeze.
They crossed the drawbridge and entered the dark aperture of the front gate. There was no sound; it was like a crypt. The air was cool and smelled faintly of earth.
“Ho!” Dursten called. “Anything in there?”
He was answered by a gust of wind that reeked like the flatulence of a corpse, and a low moan, as of breath sighing through deserted chambers.
Excelsia shivered. She wasn’t wearing much, but her torso was excellently padded; her chill was more of the spirit than of the flesh. “I wish we had a candle,” she said.
“You could conjure one,” Norton suggested. “Aren’t you entitled to one conjuration a day?”
She brightened. “Candle!” she exclaimed, and one appeared in her hand. It was a big taper, already burning, and it spread a fine light.
“Say, that there’s a real good parlor trick,” Dursten said. “Too bad you couldn’ta produced a laser fluoroscope, so we could spy the null-psi dingus through the walls.”
The Damsel shrugged, not understanding his language. But Norton realized that the candle probably had been foolish, for she could indeed have conjured something far more effective for either illumination or protection. Well, he should have thought of that before he spoke; now her conjuration was done, and that was that. They would have to make do with what they had. The light of the candle was comforting, anyway. There was something about a flickering flame; it seemed alive, in contrast to the cold brilliance of an electric lamp.
They entered the dark hole. The Alicorn led, since he could see and smell in the dark, was largely immune to poisonous magic, and had his weapon always ready. Excelsia followed with her candle, illuminating the passage for the rest of them. Her gauzy gown tended to become translucent when the light was on the far side. Norton admired the effect, but wished it wasn’t occurring right at this time; he needed to be alert to the hazards of the castle.
Next came Norton, followed by Dursten, with the Bemme in her natural form bringing up the rear. She, too, could see pretty well in the dark because of her huge eyes. As Norton glanced back, he could see a thousand miniature candles reflected in the jewel like facets other orbs. He doubted the Bemme would overlook anything!
The passage proceeded directly in toward the center of the castle. It was about eight feet square in cross section, lined on all sides by clammy, mortared stones. In fact, those walls sweated tiny driblets of water that gleamed in the candlelight. The whole thing was dank and oppressive. Norton began to feel claustrophobic, for no good reason.
The Alicorn came to a blank wall cutting off the passage. The light of the Damsel’s candle showed smaller tunnels exiting at right angles to the left and right.
“Which way should we go?” Norton asked Sning.
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
This was getting annoying! “Don’t you have opinions any more?”
Squeeze.
“You mean I’m not asking the right questions?”
Squeeze.
Norton sighed. Maybe on a better day he would have been able to come up with the right questions and cut through this nuisance instantly; right now he was too distracted by the exigencies of the moment. It had been a long time since he had had a chance to relax and recuperate.
“Maybe we could split our party, and- “Dursten began.
“No!” Norton and Excelsia said together. They remembered getting separated in the castle of the other Sorceress.
Dursten shrugged. “Suit yourself. Pick a tube.”
Norton chose randomly. He pointed right. “That one.”
There was no warning squeeze from Sning, so they proceeded. This passage was narrower, only four feet across. It made another right-angle turn left and debouched into a chamber whose cross section was about twenty-five feet and whose ceiling arched high above. The candle hardly lighted it all. Its far end, fifty feet distant, seemed to have another tunnel exit.
They spread out and started across.
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Hold it!” Norton said. “Sning just gave warning!”
The Alicorn dipped his head to point with his horn. There was a line crossing the chamber about ten feet from the entrance.
“Trap door?” Dursten asked, peering at the line.
Squeeze, squeeze.
“No,” Norton said. “I think we’re not supposed to cross that line.”
“Hell with that noise!” Dursten said impatiently. “Nobody corrals me like that nohow!” And he stepped across the line.
From the far side of the chamber a dozen blobs of drainpipe garbage appeared. Each one floated a foot above the floor, trailing drools of hair and slime. They fired clogs of jelly like stuff across the chamber as they advanced.
“Ooo, ugh!” Excelsia exclaimed, dodging a missile. Evidently she had been braced for routine things like knives or empty boots, but not for this.
“I’ll get them gunks!” Dursten said gallantly. He drew his blaster and popped away with excellent aim. All spacemen, of course, were crack shots. As he scored on each gunk, it exploded, spraying coffee grounds and potato peels at the ceiling. In a moment the chamber was clear- and messy.
Dursten blew off his smoking muzzle and bolstered his blaster. “Told you I’d upgrade my shooter,” he said. “I never liked gunks nohow.”
They continued on through the chamber, through the passage beyond, and into another blank wall with channels to the right and left. “Right again,” Norton said. They turned right, and around another right-angle turn, and came into a chamber similar to the first, with another line across it. Dursten drew his blaster and stepped over the line.
More gunks appeared. One gunk splatted just behind Norton as he dodged. He turned to look at its impact on the wall-and discovered that the stain was smoking. “That’s acid!”
“Sure, them gunks don’t mean us no good,” Dursten said philosophically, blasting away at them. His aim remained uncanny; in a moment all gunks were refuse.
They passed on through into another passage, met another T-intersection, and turned right again. A left elbow brought them to a third chamber.
“Are we getting anywhere?” Excelsia inquired, waving her candle impatiently.
“Shore, we’re blasting lots o’gunks,” Dursten answered, stepping across the line and proceeding to blast away.
“Is that all there is to human life-blasting gunks?” the Bemme asked, forming a mouth for the speech.
“Ain’t that enough?” Dursten asked.
The Bemme shrugged gelatinously and followed. But the question nagged Norton. He didn’t want to continue blasting gunks indefinitely; he wanted to locate the Eviler Sorceress and get the amulet from her. He would be happy to bypass the gunks entirely.
They blasted through two more chambers. “Are these all different?” Norton asked.
Squeeze, squeeze.
“You mean we’re repeating chambers?”
Squeeze.
“Let me check this.” Norton walked back to the beginning of the last chamber they had cleared of flying gunks and turned about. He stepped back across the line.
Twelve new gunks appeared. The other folk, caught by surprise, scurried to avoid them. Dursten got busy and blasted them all.
“Crossing the line does it,” Norton said. “Watch.” And, when they were out of the way, he crossed the line a third time-and twelve more gunks appeared.
Dursten mopped them up. The charge in his upgraded blaster seemed indefatigable.
“Just what are we accomplishing?” Norton asked, frustrated. “We’re repeating chambers and blasting things that are triggered into existence by a line!”
Dursten considered. “Never thought o’that,” he admitted. “This here thing’s just a maze.”
A maze-of course! Their object was not to blast innumerable gunks, but to find their way through the maze to the Eviler Sorceress. “So we aren’t getting anywhere,” Norton concluded. “Is that why you had no answer before, Sning?”
Squeeze.
“Can you direct us through this maze?”
Sning hesitated, then slowly squeezed once.
Still those odd reactions! They had not yet fathomed the whole truth about this sinister place! “Very well. Should we turn left at the next T?”
Squeeze.
They moved through the maze, following Sning’s directions. Each new chamber brought a dozen new gunks for the spaceman to blast. Then, abruptly, they came to a chamber that was different. It was small, only eight feet on a side, and had no exit. At Sning’s behest, they crowded inside.
The entrance door slid closed. Then the chamber descended. Excelsia screamed, thinking they were falling to their doom, and clutched Dursten desperately.
“Say, now,” the spaceman said, pleased. “I guess I reckon there are better things’n blasting gunks!”
“It’s only an elevator,” Norton said. “Suing wouldn’t send us into a trap.”
“Not doom?” Excelsia asked, wide-eyed.
“Not even discomfort,” Norton assured her.
“That’s okay, cutie,” Dursten said. “How‘ bout a li’l kiss while we’re at it?”
The Damsel realized where she was. “Oaf!” she shrieked, slapping him smartly and stepping indignantly away.
The spaceman shook his head. “Femmes-who needs‘ em?”
The elevator’s motion stopped. The door slid open. Beyond was a green passage.
“A new maze,” Norton said, stepping out. “Can you guide us through this one, too, Sning?”
Again the response was a slow squeeze.
“I wish I knew what’s bothering you!” Norton exclaimed. “Is there danger we can’t handle?”
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Then let’s move on through!”
They threaded the second maze. This one was curvy rather than angular, and the walls were green plaster. The chambers were ovals with bloated purple glitches attacking on cue. These were resistive to Dursten’s blaster, but popped like bubbles when pricked by Excelsia’s knife point or the Alicorn’s horn. “Just as well,” Dursten said gruffly. “My blaster’s charge ain’t forever.”
Sning guided them through the labyrinth to a second elevator. They entered and descended to a third level- which turned out to be a yellow maze. The creatures in it were icks, like soft bowling balls with eyes where the holes should be. They rolled up, threatening to crush everything in their paths, but Dursten’s blaster caused them to go all to pieces.
Then the charge gave out. The last ick was only winged. It spun out of control and banged into a wall. “Oh, the poor thing!” Excelsia exclaimed. “It’s hurt!” She dashed to it and put her arms about it.
“Crazy dame! What about my blaster?” Dursten demanded.
“Oh, shove your- “But she was too ladylike to be able to complete a thought like that.
“Maybe I can stomp the ick,” he said.
“Leave it alone!” she flared, cuddling the bowling ball. “Can’t you see it’s suffering?”
The spaceman shot a baffled glance at Norton. “Femmes! Can you figger‘ em?”
“Not me,” Norton said, though in truth he had some sympathy with the ick. It was perhaps a variety of wilderness creature, forced to serve as cannon fodder for •the Sorceress. He bore no special ill wilt for the soldiers of the front, who tended to be victims of circumstances no matter which side they fought on.
But this delay gave him an opportunity to ponder the situation again. These multilayered mazes-were they any different from the endless mazes on any one level, if a person proceeded randomly? Was there any more point in threading endless mazes than there was in blasting endless gunks, glitches, and icks? Especially considering that Dursten’s blaster had pooped out? Well, he would find out. “Is there?” he asked Sning.
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Is that why you’ve been hesitant? You can guide us through the mazes, but there’s not much point?”
Squeeze.
“Do you know an alternative?”
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
He had been afraid of that. “So we’ve still got to muddle through ourselves?”
A reluctant squeeze. Sning was doing his best, and he was very helpful, but his limit of information had been reached; this castle maze was too complex.
The Eviler Sorceress, Norton realized, didn’t have to kill them directly. She could simply let them wear themselves out in interminable mazes until they were too tired to bother her, or until they made some mistakes and got creamed by whatever monsters defended the level they were on. They were fools to play the Sorceress’game- yet Sning lacked the power to penetrate that larger riddle.
“Hick says there’s a secret room,” Excelsia announced.
“Hick?” Norton asked.
“The icks are named by letters. This is H ick. He says if he’d known how nice we are, he wouldn’t have tried to roll us.”
Norton had an idea. “That room-does it have anything we can use-like maybe the amulet?”
“Hick doesn’t know,” the Damsel said.
“Sning, can you tell?”
Squeeze.
They were back in business! “It has the amulet?”
Squeeze, squeeze.
Sigh. Somehow things never turned out easy! “But it does have something that will help us shorten this rat race?”
Squeeze.
“Let’s find it, then!” He turned to Excelsia. “Will Hick show us that room?”
The Damsel talked to the ick by tapping on its surface with her delicate knuckle. The ick answered by making little off-center rolls. “He says he’ll try,” she repeated. “But the way is difficult.”
“It always is,” Norton said with resignation. “We’ll get through somehow. Lead the way.”
The ick rolled to the side of the chamber, somewhat awkwardly because of its-his?-injury, and stopped. “He says through there,” Excelsia said.
Norton contemplated the wall. It looked very solid. Well, Hick had warned that the way was difficult! “We have to break a hole?”
Squeeze.
Norton tapped the yellow wall with his knuckle. It was of the same substance as the ick, slightly resilient but quite solid, like padded plastic. He struck it with his fist, and made no impression. Just as he had suspected-soft but strong.
“A danged padded cell!” Dursten said, disgusted. “Bemme, shape up and try it.”
The Bemme formed into a robot with a sledgehammer fist. She pounded this at the wall. The fist bounced off harmlessly. She changed form to that of a small crane with a dangling wrecking ball. This, too, bounced off harmlessly.
Norton saw the problem. “A brittle surface would crack, but this padding absorbs most of the shock.”
“Hick says he could do it,” Excelsia reported. “If he weren’t injured.”
“It figgers,” Dursten said wryly.
The Alicorn poked at the wall with his horn. He succeeded in making a hole, but the horn got stuck and he had to wrench it out. He couldn’t break through either.
Norton pondered. “If the icks can do it-too bad we can’t get their cooperation. Or can we, Sning?”
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
Well, he could understand the little snake’s problem. The creatures of the Sorceress answered to the Sorceress, so it was difficult for Sning to predict their reactions.
“Shucks,” Dursten opined. “We don’t need them things to agree. We can trick‘ em into helping.”
Squeeze.
“Sning says that’s it,” Norton reported.
“Shore it is,” the spaceman agreed complacently.
“But how-?”
“Aw, Bemme can do it. Bemme, trick‘ em.”
The Bemme pondered a moment, then slid to the wall, formed a dripping-ink appendage, and painted a tunnel opening on it. The picture was very realistic; the Bemme was a fair artist. Then she slid to the center of the chamber and formed into a wooden barricade with an arrow pointing to the wall and a printed sign saying: DETOUR.
“Say, that’s neat!” Dursten said. “You’re doing okay, Bemme.” The wooden barricade purred.
The spaceman walked to the line, crossed it, and then stepped back toward the center of the chamber.
A dozen new icks rolled out of the opposite passage. They advanced on the barricade, hesitated, then made a right-angle turn and took off toward the wall. One by one, they plunged into the painted passage.
The first one struck the wall roundly and smithereened. Hot on its tail, the second struck the same spot, denting the wall and in the process fracturing itself. Rapidly the others followed, and with each impact the dent grew deeper, until the last ick crashed on through. There was a faint whistling sound, followed seconds later by a distant thunk.
The Alicorn trotted up to the hole in the wall and poked his head through. He neighed with surprise and withdrew.
Norton looked next. Only a little light came through from Excelsia’s candle; that showed beyond the wall a void-a crevasse whose height and depth were lost in darkness. There seemed to be no way around it; it paralleled the wall.
Excelsia brought her candle and joined him. The candlelight showed another wall about ten feet beyond- evidently the confinement for the next chamber.
“Where do we go from here?” Excelsia asked. “We don’t need to break into another ick chamber, do we? We could get into that by going through the tunnels.”
True. This was apparently the interstice between the chambers of the maze, and since the secret chamber they sought was outside the maze, this was where they wanted to be. But it seemed impossible to pass!
“Well, we must have to follow this, uh, space to the key chamber,” Norton said. “If the Alicorn can fly it- “
“He can fly it,” Excelsia said confidently. “He will carry anyone I ask him to. But he can bear only one person.”
“If he could ferry us across one at a time- “
“But he doesn’t know where to go,” she said.
“The ick knows,” Dursten said. “Take the ick first.”
The Damsel nodded. “And return for the rest of us once he knows the way. Spaceman, you aren’t quite as stupid as you seem.”
“Thank you, gal,” Dursten said, skuffling his feet.
“Nor as ugly as you look,” the Bemme added. The spaceman patted her on a bug eye affectionately.
They rigged a harness from Dursten’s shirt to fasten Hick to the Alicorn’s back. Then the Alicorn scrambled through the hole, fell into the void, spread his wings, righted himself, and flew upward. His wing tips brushed the walls on either side, despite a considerably shortened stroke; he was cramped but remained airborne. He disappeared to the right.
The others waited anxiously. Would the ick lead them the right way? If the creature had only been pretending to join them, it could guide them right into disaster-or simply deprive them of the Alicorn by leading the animal into a trap. How could they be sure?
Squeeze.
That was a relief. Sning might not be able to fathom the labyrinth of the castle interstices, but he had confidence in Hick.
The Alicorn returned, wearing the empty harness. They put the Bemme in it, and the winged unicorn departed again. It seemed that the Bemme could assume the form of an Alicorn, but could not actually fly like one; that was a matter of muscle and magic, not mere appearance.
“Say, pardner,” Dursten drawled, getting bored with the wait; he had a short attention span. “Do you have all this shipment in your world?”
“I suppose we do,” Norton answered. “We have both science and magic, so there could be castles like this, though I never encountered any myself.” Something about his own statement bothered him, but he couldn’t quite nail it down.
‘“Cept you live backward,” the spaceman said.
“Backward?” Excelsia asked, her fair brow furrowing in the pretty way it had.
“Mine is a terrene-matter world,” Norton explained. “Yours is contraterrene, otherwise known as antimatter, so your time is reversed.”
“But we are together!” she protested.
“That’s because I am Chronos. I live backward. In my own world, everyone else is going the other way.”
“That must be very awkward for you,” she said.
“It is, on occasion. It does interfere with continuing social relations.”
“There be no such problem here,” she pointed out.
He looked at her. She was lovely. How nice it would be to have a continuing relationship with her, forever searching out new enchantments. But his world was in trouble, and he had to go back as soon as he could manage.
The Alicorn returned, and Excelsia boarded. Now Norton and Dursten waited, watching her candlelight recede. They were in darkness.
“I ain’t so dumb I can’t see how she likes you, Nort,” Dursten said. “If I was in your britches, I’d shore stick around!”
Norton sighed. “I’m sure that’s what Satan has in mind. If I am tempted to remain here, he can have his will with Earth.”
“Who’s Satan?”
“The Incarnation of Evil. You have no Devil here?”
“Hell, no! I’m a science man myself. I don’t believe none o’that ship.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t exist here.”
“Must be,” Dursten agreed. “We ain’t superstitious.” He glanced at the hole; Norton could tell by the sound of his body moving. “I shore hope that there animal don’t get lost in the dark, knock on wood.” He tapped the plastic floor.
Then they heard the beat of great wings and relaxed. The spaceman’s nonsuperstitious knocking must have helped.
Dursten was next. “We’d never a needed this, Nort, if my danged spaceship had fitted in here,” he remarked as he mounted invisibly. “But I gotta admit, this shore’s a good horse.” Then they were through the hole and gone, and Norton was alone.
Now the darkness seemed to press in on him. He was an adult, but he didn’t like this. He liked to see where he was and he liked company. He really felt the isolation of his office! This antimatter Cloud was indeed tempting, because of the companionship it allowed. To be able to interact with a woman like Excelsia, who seemed much more interested in him than she had been on the prior adventure, and to have her remember in the same sequence he did; to touch her, love her-
Touch her? Again he felt a wrongness. What was it? Not merely that Satan was tempting him; he knew that. Not that Excelsia would be unwilling; she was virginal but ready to be wooed. Not that there was any insurmountable difference between their cultures; they were remarkably similar. He loved the wilderness; she was a creature of it, not even knowing the city life. They had the same language-
Same language? How could that be? There had never been any contact between the people of the Glob or those of the Magic-Lantern Cloud and the people of the normal galaxy! There couldn’t be, because matter and antimatter could not touch. When the two came together, they annihilated each other, dissolving into total energy with an explosion that dwarfed any nuclear detonation.
Explosion? Total conversion? Then how was he able to exist here? He was normal matter; he knew that. He had lived most of his life normally, until taking the Hourglass. After that he lived backward-but he remained terrene, for he had touched normal people, such as Agleh, and normal Incarnations, such as Clotho, and could phase in with them any time.
Well, his magic white cloak protected him from attack, and might also protect him from the ravage of contact with antimatter. But he kept that cloak shield withdrawn when interacting with friends-which meant it wasn’t operating.
The more he pondered, the more certain he became that Satan had lied to him. This was no contraterrene frame! It couldn’t be! He had kissed Excelsia, and neither of them had exploded. There had to have been social contact between Earth and these other worlds before. The Alicorn had referred to the Latins, Italians, and Arabs, and it was simply not to be believed that there could have been similar names in a frame having no contact with Earth. Without the antimatter aspect, such contact became feasible.
But how was it, then, that the time scale was backward?
He heard the wingbeats of the Alicorn’s return, and his thought was interrupted. But he remained shaken. There was definitely something about this too similar to Earth setting that didn’t mesh, but he did not yet comprehend the full nature of Satan’s lie. And why should he? Satan was the Father of Lies, the ultimate professional in deception, while Norton was only a man, not long experienced in his present office. Still, now he was sure there was a lie to decipher! That was a significant revelation, and he would go on from there.
The Alicorn came to him in the dark, and Norton fumbled to a mounting. He braced his legs against the firm front anchorage of the great wings and grabbed two handfulls of mane. “Let’s go, gallant beast!” he said.
They squeezed through the hole and dropped into the void. The wings beat, and the Alicorn forged, as Excelsia would put it, onward and upward. They were flying- and it was a wonderful feeling! Little jets of flame showed at the creature’s nostrils as the Alicorn exerted himself, and the flame lighted the region dimly. No wonder the beast could handle himself in the dark; his own breath gave him just enough light to aid his excellent vision. This was certainly the finest of steeds!
They flew swiftly through the dark reaches, then cruised around a comer where two voids intersected. Norton saw dimly how massive arches of substance crossed from wall to wall, requiring the Alicorn to travel above or below; these would be the casings for the passages between chambers of the regular mazes. This castle was twice as complicated as he had thought! Then they flew down to a cold nether pass, up to a warm high pass, and into the view of Excelsia’s flickering candle. The Alicorn landed neatly on a high, strong ledge where the rest of the party waited.
“You’re safe. Sir Norton!” Excelsia exclaimed, almost singeing his ear with the candle flame as she flung her arms about him. She planted a moist kiss on him.
Contraterrene? Not likely!
The ledge was the edge of a sloping surface that proceeded toward a dim glow inland. Hick rolled confidently down, and the others followed.
The glow expanded as they approached. It turned out to be a hot section of the pavement before a passage into a mound. The ick rolled to a stop at the edge of the glow.
“In there?” Norton asked, unpleased.
“Hick says yes,” Excelsia said. It was unclear how she communicated with either ick or Alicorn, as she did not always tap the former or touch the latter, but obviously she understood them. “He can’t go there; the heat would melt him. And it would singe Ali’s wings, too; he can’t escape it in that low tunnel.”
“How far in is the chamber?” Norton asked.
“Hick says not far. About fifty feet.”
This frame had the same measurements as Earth, too. Feet, inches. Everything was the same! “Then Hick and the Alicorn can wait here while the rest of us go in.”
The Damsel tested the air near the passage by extending her hand. “Ooo, that would bum my tender flesh!”
She was correct. The ambience was too hot for any of them. “I’ll go alone,” Norton decided. “If I can find a way.”
Squeeze.
“There is a way?” Yet again he was frustrated by Sning’s inability to speak. “Some way I can be protected from the heat?”
Squeeze.
Norton looked around, but saw nothing. “Sning says I can be protected-though I don’t know how.”
The Bemme slid up. She settled into a furry puddle about eight feet in diameter. “Her?” Norton asked, and received Sning’s squeeze in response.
“Oh, I get it,” Dursten said. “She’s a heat shield. Put her on.”
“Put her on?” Norton repeated dubiously.
The spaceman bent to pick up the thin material. It flopped and folded in his hands like a quilt. He held it out to Norton. “Yep. She’s good at this-she superinsulates, when she wants to. The perfect blanket.” The blanket purred.
Norton tentatively took hold of the Bemme-cloth. It felt like furry silk. He draped it over his head and shoulders. It was really quite comfortable. “This will really shield me from the heat?”
Squeeze.
“Okay, I’ll try it. I’ll return this way once I have what I need from the chamber.”
The others nodded. It struck him what an odd group they were-a swashbuckling spaceman, a voluptuous, innocent Damsel, a winged unicorn, and an animate bowling ball. But he liked them all; they were dedicating themselves to his welfare.
He turned and stepped onto the hot pavement. His solid shoes protected him from the immediate heat of it, and his Bemme-cloak shielded him from the ambient heat. It was working!
Nevertheless, he hurried. He ran through the tunnel toward a greener glow ahead-with luck, the chamber.
It was; in moments he burst into it, and the heat abated. But he kept the cloak draped over his shoulder, just in case.
He looked around. Four people stood in lighted alcoves: an old gray-robed, gray-bearded man; a stoutish, middleaged woman in a business suit; a strikingly beautiful young woman in a bursting bikini; and a boy of about six with a moderately arrogant curl to his lip. They were all quite still, as if in suspended animation; perhaps they were in storage, awaiting whatever use the Eviler Sorceress might choose to make of them at her convenience.
What now? He had not known what to expect, and now did not know what to do with what he had found. “One of them can help me?” he asked Sning.
Squeeze.
“Can give me the amulet?”
Squeeze, squeeze.
Perhaps that had been too much to hope for. “Can you indicate which one?”
Squeeze, squeeze.
Still too complex for the little snake. Human beings were far more devious than mazes! Well, he couldn’t expect Sning to handle everything.
Norton went to stand before the old man. He saw now that the man’s robe was mail, linked and woven metal to protect him from attack. He wore a small iron crown, and his face was set in a half-sneer of authority. Surely he was some great king or warlord. “Uh, hello,” Norton essayed.
“Speak up, youngster!” the man said, coming to life in the alcove. His voice had a fine timbre. “Do you accept my gift?”
“I’m not sure. Who are you? What is your gift?”
“I am Ozymandius, King of Kings,” the king said grandly. “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. My gift is Power.”
“Power?” Norton looked around, but saw no works he could safely attribute to the king.
“Power, lad. I can make you the master of all you survey, with authority to extirpate lives by your merest whim.”
Norton pondered. “Do you know anything about this, Sning?”
Squeeze, squeeze.
Again, he would have to decide for himself. He remained uncertain, but had no alternative. “Can you give me power over the null-psi amulet?”
“Certainly,” the king said.
But Norton decided to try one more question. “Can you give me power over the whole contraterrene frame?”
“Indubitably,” the king assured him.
Just so. Norton moved on to the next person. Now he saw that the middle-aged woman’s suit was of woven gold, and she wore a necklace and bracelets formed of brilliant precious stones. “Hello, ma’am.”
“A greeting, young man,” the woman said, coming to life as the old king had. Evidently this was another rote address, as Norton was not really young. “Do you accept my gift?” Diamonds sparkled at her ears as she moved her head.
“Who are you, and what is your gift?”
“I am Mrs. Croesus, widow of the fabulous King of Lydia, who was the father of coinage. My gift is Wealth.” She extended her arm so that her sleeve pulled back to reveal additional bracelets of gold, platinum, and emeralds. She opened her jacket to show inner pockets stuffed with bright gold coins.
“Enough wealth to buy the null-psi amulet?”
“Certainly.” She moved her leg, and an anklet of sparkling opals showed.
“Enough to buy the contraterrene frame?”
“Assuredly.”
Norton went on to the next. “Hello.”
The lovely young woman animated. “Oh, aren’t you the handsome one!” she cooed. “I am Circe. Let me delight you with my gift.”
“What is your gift?” Norton had heard of the lovely sorceress Circe and didn’t trust her.
“Romance,” she breathed ecstatically. “I can bring you to fantastic heights of passion and fulfillment such as you can hardly imagine, let alone endure!”
“A height sufficient to make me forget about the null-psi amulet?”
“Of course!” she agreed, leaning forward.
Norton blinked. It took him a moment to remember his next question. “More passion than elsewhere in the contraterrene-?”
“Oh, yes!” She sighed. Her bikini halter was beginning to fray from the tension on it.
Norton took one last look, gulped, and moved regretfully on to the boy. “Hello.”
“What’s it to ya?” the lad snapped impertinently. “Ya want my furshlugginer gift or don’t ya, creep?”
“What is your gift?”
“I can tell ya where anything is. Now get lost, jerk.”
“Anything in the contraterrene cluster?” The boy stared at him. “What CT cluster, dodo?”
“How about the Magic-Lantern Cloud? It’s CT, too.” The boy shook his head. “Mister, you’re dreaming!
Ain’t no CT here!”
Finally one who spoke the truth, however insolently! “I will accept your gift.”
“What, when ya coulda had power, pelf, or sex? Ya nuts, moron?”
“Tell me where the amulet of null-psi is.”
“Ah, ya don’t want that thing! It don’t do nothin’.”
“I do want it.”
The boy eyed him with new appreciation. “Ya got a death wish, dumbbell?”
“I need it to make a deal with a Genius.”
“You’re crazy, numbskull! Them bulbheads will screw ya every time!”
“You mean they don’t honor agreements?”
“Oh, they stick to the letter, sorta, but they use the loopholes to weasel out anyway. Ya ain’t going to get nothing you want from no skullbrain.”
“I don’t seem to have much choice. Where is the amulet?”
“Aw, Eve’s got it.”
“Eve?”
“The Eviler Sorceress, dolt! Ya can’t get near that bitch, and if ya could, she’d zap ya before she’d let ya get that thing.”
“Zap me?”
“Ya know. Turn ya to mush, like her sista useta. She ain’t going to give ya no amulet, that’s for sure, stupe.”
“I will have to take that chance. Tell me where the Sorceress is.”
“Aw, she moves about all the time. Ya gotta reach her through channels.”
“Then show me the channel.”
“It’s another chamber, first off, where they can get a bead on the route. But it’s real hard to get there. Ya gotta pass the animals.”
“I’ll find a way.” And Norton listened while the impertinent boy described the route in his particular vernacular. Then the boy returned to immobility in his alcove, and Norton redraped his Bemme heat shield and ran back to rejoin the others.
“We have to find another chamber,” he reported, doffing the Bemme, who re-formed her natural shape as he set her on the pavement. “You were great, Bemme! I hardly sweated.” She blushed pink with pleasure all over.
“Well, let’s mosey on, then,” Dursten said, rolling himself a cigarette and touching it to one of the hot coals in the ground to light it.
They moseyed on, following the route the boy had described. “But we have to watch out for pieharps,” Norton said.
“What’s a pieharp?” Excelsia asked. “Something to eat, or something to play?”
“I’m not sure,” Norton admitted. “But I fear it’s something that will try to eat or play us.”
The ledge they were following circled the mound and cooled. It broadened, becoming a darkling plain on which thick, dark stalks grew, bearing long, thin leaves. Excelsia held her candle close to one, peering at it. “This looks familiar.”
“Watch it, gal,” Dursten warned. “It might eat you.”
“No, it’s harmless,” she decided. The Alicorn sniffed a plant, then began eating it avidly. Excelsia clapped her hands. “Oh, I know!‘ Tis flying carpet reed!”
“Why, so it is,” Norton agreed, startled. “I’ve seen the same thing back on Earth. They strip the long fibers and weave them into magic carpets.”
“Yes, that is done here, too,” she said.
Squeeze.
Norton glanced at Sning. “A warning?”
Squeeze.
“Danger coming?” When Sning agreed, Norton relayed the warning to the others.
“By land or by space?” Dursten asked. It turned out to be both. “Then we better get us a ship,” the spaceman decided. “You say these here weeds can fly?”
“They must first be stripped and cured,” Excelsia said. “In their natural state they are too wild.”
“We don’t have time for that,” Dursten said. “I can tame a wild ship; I’m the best durned pilot in this neck o’space. Hold your light here, gal; I’ll make us a ship.” He began tearing plants out of the ground.
Dursten seemed to know what he was doing. Norton and the Bemme helped him harvest the plants and weave them into a crude and shaggy mat. True to the Damsel’s warning, the thing was extremely unruly. It bucked and tossed ferociously, threatening to fall apart. Finally the Bemme formed herself into an endless rope and wrapped herself about the mat, holding it together. Dursten clambered on it, braced his feet in rough-hewn stirrups the Bemme formed, and hauled on vine reins. “Yahoo!”
There was a sound ahead of them-raucous screeching, as of a flock of unruly birds. Sning gave Norton another warning squeeze. “That’s it,” he told the others. “The danger!”
“Well, we can stand and fight,” Dursten said. “But with my blaster dead- “
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Sning says fighting’s no good,” Norton reported. “We’d better try to avoid this threat.” He asked Sning, “Can we outrun it, then?”
Squeeze, squeeze.
He glanced at the bucking carpet, not thrilled with that prospect. “Outfly it?”
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
What did that mean? Neither yes nor no! But the birds were coming too fast; there was no time for twenty questions. “We’d better try to outfly it!”
“Then get aboard, Nort!” Dursten cried.
Norton grabbed onto the back half of the bucking bundle of plants. Some carpet! He hauled himself up behind the spaceman and hung on gracelessly. Excelsia mounted the Alicorn. In a moment all of them were airborne except the ick. There simply was no way to carry that creature this time. “Hide, Hick!” Norton called to it, and Hick rolled away.
The menace arrived. Norton saw them in the unreliable light of Excelsia’s candle-fantastic crossbreeds with the lower bodies of human beings and the upper torsos and heads of gross birds. “Pieharps?” Excelsia cried, horrified.
Norton figured it out. Human tops and bird bottoms were harpies; bird tops and human bottoms were pieharps. They looked and sounded vicious.
The pieharps were running along the ground, using their powerful legs. But when they saw their prey escaping, they spread their dark wings and launched into the air. They were big, hairy, and fast-faster in the air than either carpet or Alicorn. Sning’s warning had been well advised. But Sning had also hinted that they might somehow outfly the menace-or at least, Sning had not denied the possibility.
“I’m ready to hotshot it!” Dursten cried. “Hang on, Nort, while I buzz them there birds!”
Norton hung on. There was nothing else he could do. He had never been aboard an uncured carpet before and hoped never to repeat the experience. Under the spaceman’s guidance, the carpet bucked, then slued around to charge the pieharps.
The bird-men squawked and scattered, caught by surprise. “Get along, li’l doggies!” Dursten called, pursuing them. The weed-steed swooped and reared, kicking up its leaves, bashing into the posteriors of the fleeing pieharps.
Norton was amazed. The pieharps obviously had the more formidable force, but the antics of the carpet kept them disorganized. Thus, without either outflying or outfighting the bird-men, the spaceman was nullifying them.
Norton looked up and saw Excelsia on the Alicorn, hovering above. There was blood on the animal’s horn and hooves; evidently he had fought off some pieharps. But now the pieharps had forgotten about him, because of the distraction of the men on the carpet. Sning’s ambiguous response was making sense.
“Hang on, pardner!” Dursten cried. What did he think Norton had been doing? Now the rug made a vertical loop. The surroundings whirled around dizzily, a universe in chaos, a dream-world.
A dream-world...
This whole adventure lacked credibility as an objective situation. Maybe convergent evolution was possible, as Satan had described it-but if the Glob and the Cloud really were flowing backward in time, what were the chances of their people matching Earth’s so closely, even in slang, right at this moment? This planet of I should be either more primitive or more advanced than Earth, not just the same. Who, in his right mind, would believe in this coincidence? This frame couldn’t be opposite in time flow to Earth!
But a dream world, now-made up for Norton’s benefit within his own mind-that could be believed. That would require no galactic travel, no contraterrene frame, no reverse time flow or phenomenal coincidences. A dream world was so obvious-how could he have overlooked it? Satan, the Father of Lies-naturally he would use an easy lie in preference to a difficult truth to gain his nefarious designs.
But if this was a dream-why couldn’t Norton simply break out of it? He had tried to will himself home at the outset and had failed. Was he drugged, so that he was locked in until the drug wore off? No, Satan could not have done that to another Incarnation. There had to be a trick of some sort, something Norton did not yet understand. This was another type of puzzle, and to solve it he had to find the key to its solution.
Sning, do you know?
Squeeze, squeeze.
In the end, the mischief of Satan had to be a greater thing than a little magic snake could compass. Sning was like a pocket calculator, very useful for spot answers, but not for the formulation of questions about the nature of ultimate reality.
Squeeze.
“Which way from here, pardner?” Dursten cried.
Norton’s question, precisely! But until he found his private personal key to escape, he would have to play the game he was locked into. He gave instructions, and the galloping rug charged and disrupted another wave of pieharps. Then it lifted and swung onto course. The pieharps were now so disorganized they didn’t even follow right away; possibly they thought the rug was about to loop back on them.
Too disorganized to follow-again, an analogy of his own condition. Satan was keeping him so occupied with challenges of the moment that he couldn’t figure out the grand design. Obviously, Satan’s finger was in this adventure, as it had been throughout; since fiction was the highest form of lie, naturally the Father of Lies was skilled at it. Challenge, adventure, humor-Norton had to admit it was a good presentation.
They zoomed on toward the next station. The wind caught up Excelsia’s skirt, so that her legs flashed, still draped sidesaddle. Sex appeal, Norton added mentally to his list of fictive qualities. Everything was here-and, frustrating as it was, Norton had to admit to himself that he liked it. This sort of thing surely was a reward for Satan’s minions. But Norton knew he could not afford to allow himself to remain locked in it.
The pieharps re-formed. They pounded after carpet and Alicorn, their hairy bare legs dangling. They were gaining; soon the fight would resume.
“Them birdbrains won’t leave off,” Dursten muttered, glancing back. “I shore wish I had a recharge on my blaster! Didn’t you say there are caves in between? With stag-tites and stuff?”
“Stalactites,” Norton agreed. “You can distinguish them from stalagmites mnemonically by thinking of the C in stalactite as standing for ceiling, and the G in Stalagmite as standing for ground. So the stalactite hangs from the- “
“Just tell me where they are!” the spaceman snapped. “Afore them barefoots catch us!”
He had a point. “But it’s not safe to go near them in the air in this dark. Those things are solid onyx, like giant icicles- “
“It’s them or the featherfaces!” Dursten cried.
Indeed, the bird-men were closing in rapidly, screaming belligerently. They were flapping in at the carpet, pecking at it. Norton tried to kick them away, but it was futile; he was too busy just hanging on.
Then the party approached the cave region. All of this was inside the castle, of course, between the walls confining the regular functions. There seemed to be an extraordinary amount of waste space here.
The Alicorn flew beside the cave entrance, hovering while Excelsia’s candlelight played across it. The stalactites were there. Icicles? No, they were more like jagged teeth! The polished onyx gleamed reflectively, wet like saliva in the mouth of that orifice. Inside the cave, behind the first row, Norton could see the points of endless backup rows of them. If the C stood for ceiling, surely the T stood for teeth! Norton didn’t want to fly through that!
“Yore squeeze dingus,” the spaceman said as he absentmindedly clubbed a pieharp on the beak with the butt of his blaster. “Can it call out stag-mites?”
“I suppose so,” Norton said, giving up on the lesson in pronunciation. “But what-?”
“Call‘ em out,‘ cause we’re going through!” And the carpet charged the cave.
“But it takes time to get that sort of information! Sning can only- “
“Just tell me when one’s dead ahead and close!”
Squeeze. “Now!” Norton cried, knowing in his heart that they would crash into a tooth and fall helplessly to the rising stalagmites below.
The carpet swerved. In the faintly flickering and distant illumination of Excelsia’s candle, he saw the stalactite pass just to their left. Two pieharps, too hot in pursuit, crashed into it. They screamed and dropped out of sight, for that had been a high-speed collision. In seconds their descending screams cut off abruptly. They had struck the spires below. But many more still pursued.
Squeeze. “Another!” Norton cried. He was terrified by this suicidal flight.
The carpet swerved left-and three more pieharps were caught by the column on the right. They weren’t looking where they were going; of course, the darkness made it easy to err.
“Ain’t this fun?” Dursten demanded exuberantly. “I ain’t flown like this since I threaded the head of a comet on a dare!” He sobered momentarily. “’ Course, I did lose my ship on that one...”
That was indeed the problem on this sort of thing! But Dursten certainly was an able pilot. He swished the carpet past half a dozen columns, taking out most of the pieharps. In the dark, the bird-men were unable to maneuver as effectively as the Sning-guided carpet.
Abruptly they were at the next stage of the trip-the deep caves. These were much smaller than the prior ones, with no stalactites or stalagmites, and had many rounded tunnels that wound through the rock. It was necessary to traverse these to reach the second chamber.
The Alicorn came to land on the ledge. He had taken an easier route through the caves-the space between the points of the stalactites and stalagmites. But had Dursten done that, the pieharps would have pursued them unscathed. Norton had to admit that the spaceman had known what he was doing; he was indeed a hotshot pilot.
There was a new problem, however. The caves were large enough for all of them to walk, including the Alicorn, but not to fly. There were no impassable crevices or heated stones. But these caves were occupied. As soon as the group entered them, Excelsia’s candle showed the antennae of giant insects.
They were monstrous termites, predators of the castle interstices. The ones in front were warriors, with grotesque armor and huge pincers. They scuffled along the tunnels, familiar with the labyrinth, for it was the termites that had carved out these warrens. In time they would hollow out so much of the castle that it would collapse. But that was in the future, while the problem of passage was now. How was it possible to get by?
Squeeze.
“Sning says there is a way,” Norton reported. “Does that there thing know my blaster’s dead?”
Squeeze. “Sning knows. Can we fight through?”
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Sneak through?” Dursten put in.
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Bluff through?” Excelsia asked.
Squeeze, squeeze.
“You shore that thing’s got all its batteries?”
“If Sning says there’s a way, there’s a way.”
“Well, he better tell us real soon,‘ cause them termites are mighty hungry!”
Indeed, the termite warriors were nudging forward in the process of deciding that the intruders were edible. The Bemme was holding them back temporarily by forming pincers even larger than theirs, but Norton knew this would not fool them very long. Once the termites reached a firm conclusion, this would be no safe place!
“Is there something we can do to make it safe?” Norton asked, trying to cudgel his mind for the right questions.
Squeeze.
Aha! “As a group?”
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
Damn! “One of us?”
Squeeze.
“To make it safe for all of us?”
Squeeze.
A warrior termite marched up more aggressively. The Bemme was balking the ones on the left, but this one was on the right. The Alicorn moved to intercept it, but it was obvious that, when the overt hostilities commenced, the termites would overwhelm them by sheer numbers. “Get a wiggle on, Nort!” Dursten murmured.
“Which one of us?” Norton asked Sning. “Me?”
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Dursten?”
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Excelsia?”
Squeeze.
The Damsel’s head turned quickly. “Oh, I can not fight such monsters, sirrah!” she protested, her candle wavering. “I am but a helpless feminine creature!”
Exactly. What was Sning thinking of? “Some magic she can do? Maybe a conjuration?”
Squeeze, squeeze.
This was baffling. “The way she looks?”
Squeeze, squeeze.
A third termite warrior was advancing between the ones blocked by the Bemme and the Alicorn, coming disconcertingly close. Dursten stood before it, pointing his blaster. This did make the insect pause-but for how long?
“Something about her?” Norton asked.
Squeeze.
“Something specific?”
Squeeze.
“Uh, can you show me? Hot-cold?”
Squeeze.
Norton walked quickly to Excelsia, who stood with her delicate knuckles in her mouth, nervously watching the closest termite. He pointed his finger at her pert nose. Sning did not comment. He pointed to her heaving bosom. No reaction. Then he tried her purse-and that was it.
In a moment they were sorting through the items in her purse. She had the usual assortment of inconsequentials. The object turned out to be a little bottle of perfume.
“Perfume?” Norton asked blankly.
Squeeze, Sning replied patiently.
“You mean it destroys monsters, like holy water?”
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Repels termites?”
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Well, then, what good is it?”
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
Excelsia’s lips quirked. “It be good for wearing, belike.” She opened the bottle and dabbed some behind her ears.
The nearest termite paused. It seemed confused.
Dursten snorted. “That there thing’s sniffing the bottle!”
“The smell!” Norton cried. “It pacifies termites?”
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
“Well, it does something to them! Should we all put it on?”
Squeeze.
So they all dabbed perfume on themselves and on the Alicorn, and the termites did not attack. They walked on through the warrens, and the termites ignored them.
“I get it!” Dursten said. “The smell o’the hive! We’ve got the dang smell o’the hive!”
It seemed that Excelsia’s perfume was precisely that flavor, or had it as a component. The termites were odor oriented, and now regarded the intruders as other termites.
They arrived at the second chamber. This one was easy to enter; it had glass facing and resembled an executive office, the kind that allowed the boss to keep an eye on every employee without stirring from his desk.
Of course, the employees could also see in. Excelsia’s candle showed the interior clearly. There were four alcoves-but all were empty.
“An empty room?” Norton asked, dismayed.
“The jokers musta skedaddled when they heard us coming,” Dursten said disgustedly.
“But the only way out is through the termite warren,” Norton said. “We should have seen them.”
“Unless this is another magic levitator,” Excelsia suggested.
Levitator? Oh-elevator’. “If so, maybe we can use it to follow them.”
They all entered and looked around. There seemed to be no control buttons, and the floor of the glassed-in chamber was that of termite-hewn rock. It did not seem to be an elevator.
Dursten poked around the first alcove. “Shore coulda been somebody standing here once,” he said. “See, his footprints are right here.” He stepped into the alcove, planting his space boots where indicated.
Abruptly, he stiffened. His breathing stopped, and his face was frozen in an expression of mild surprise. He had become a statue.
“It’s a trap!” Norton exclaimed, horrified.
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Not a trap? But look at him! He’s petrified!”
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
“Sning says there’s something about this,” Norton said to Excelsia, who was, of course, biting her knuckles in mute helplessness.
He went to stand before the petrified spaceman. “Can you hear me, Dursten?”
Dursten came alive again. “I ain’t exactly him any more,” he said. “You want my advice, sport?”
Norton hesitated. Had the spaceman become the exhibit? If so, care was essential. “I’m not sure. How competent is your advice?”
“Well, I reckon that’s for you to find out, Nort.”
What Norton really wanted to ascertain was whether he was, in fact, in a dream world that he could simply awaken from. If he was not, his “awakening” might be disastrous. A person who decided, when about to step off the brink of a cliff, that it was all a dream and didn’t matter would be in trouble if wrong. But if right, he could step off the cliff and force the dream to end. Norton had to be sure. What conceivable question could he ask of a dream-figure that would settle that?
That internal question brought its answer: he needed to find someone who knew more than he did on some subject. Only that way could he be sure the answers were not coming from his own mind. For that purpose, it didn’t matter whether Bat Dursten was himself or an alcove figure; if he could not show knowledge beyond Norton’s own, he was not enough. Presumably if all four alcove figures manifested, and none could prove individuality, then Norton could reasonably assume he was locked in a dream of his own. How he would manage to awaken from it he didn’t know; somehow, committing suicide here didn’t appeal. But first he had to be sure what he was dealing with.
Squeeze.
So Sning agreed! But, of course, if this were a dream, Sning himself was probably part of it, a dream-snake whose advice was suspect. Likewise the Hourglass; now he remembered how the original, adult Bern had snatched it from him. In real life that was not possible; the Hourglass had passed right through Agleh’s hand. But that did not guarantee this was a dream-world; Satan could simply have arranged the illusion that the Hourglass had been snatched. Norton knew he could trust nothing until it proved to be independent of his imagination.
Merely talking with the alcove-spaceman would not do the job. Asking Dursten’s name and sentiments would produce only answers that were obvious or not subject to verification. So he would have to get technical, posing the riddles that had always baffled him; the point was to get beyond his own knowledge in such a way that he remained assured the information was valid. Only through scientific logic could he do that.
Norton pondered, then addressed the spaceman. “Let me ask you a sample question before I decide.”
“Why, shore, pardner. Ask away!”
“There is a story about Galileo, back on my home planet. He was supposed to have climbed to the top of the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped several objects to the ground. I forget what they were, but that doesn’t matter. Let’s assume they were a penny, a ping pong ball, and a cannonball. He discovered that they all fell at the same rate, contrary to popular opinion, the small and the large. Popular wisdom had had it that larger and heavier objects would fall faster than small ones. From this experiment he deduced the theory of gravity-that all objects in the universe attracted one another with a force directly proportional to their mass and inversely proportional to their separation from one another. Can you accept that story?”
“Well, I ain’t never been to the Tower of Pizza- “
“Any tower will do,” Norton said patiently. “The point is, what about the objects falling?”
“Why, shore,” the spaceman said. “That’s gravity, shore‘ nuff. You find it around planets and things.”
Norton controlled his irritation. “What about air resistance?”
“Oh, yeah, there’s that. I don’t mess with atmosphere so much; planets are a bother. That there ping-pong ball would fall slower in air. And so would the penny,‘ cause it’s flat, catches the air.”
“Very well. Let’s repeat the experiment on an airless planet. Absolutely no atmosphere. Now do they fall at the same rate?”
“Shore,” the spaceman agreed amicably. “Weight‘ n density don’t matter none in a perfect vacuum. A dang feather would fall as fast as a lead shot.”
“But the theory says that objects attract one another in direct proportion to their masses. Since the cannonball is more massive than the ping-pong ball, shouldn’t it fall faster?”
Dursten scratched his head. “You know, I never thought o’that! I’ll go try it sometime.”
“Does this suggest to you that Galileo could not have performed the experiment attributed to him-or that if he did, and got the results claimed, he would not have derived that particular theory from it?”
“Yeah, shore does, now you put it that there way.”
Norton sighed inwardly. The spaceman had not been able to take it any further than Norton himself had. He had questioned the Leaning Tower story at the outset, as a child, and been sure that Galileo’s experiment must have been misrepresented in some way. For example, magic could have distorted the results. None of the other children had thought so, however, and they had ridiculed him for questioning it. Norton himself had never been quite certain whether he had a valid argument or was merely finding fault with what he did not properly understand. Had Dursten been able to offer a better explanation, he could have been accepted as an independent entity. But the spaceman knew, if anything, less than Norton himself did-and that was no proof he was not a figment of a dream.
“Thank you. Bat. I’m afraid I must decline to accept your advice. This does not imply any criticism of- “
“That’s okay, Nort. Can I step down now?”
“By all means.”
The spaceman stepped out of the alcove. “Say, that shore was funny!” he said. “For a while there I felt like I was somebody else!”
“Let me try that,” Excelsia said. She stepped into the second alcove, placing her dainty feet where indicated.
She froze. “Say, she’s pretty as a pitcher!” Dursten remarked appreciatively.
She was indeed, Norton reflected. Pretty as a fine porcelain pitcher with a classic picture painted on it. He went to stand directly before her. “Hello, Excelsia.”
“Oh, hello. Sir Norton,” she replied, reanimating sweetly. “But I’m not exactly the Damsel at the moment.”
“She shore looks like a Damsel to me!” Dursten remarked.
“I understand,” Norton said.
“Will you accept my advice, O noble querent?”
“First may I try a sample?”
Her fair brow furrowed. “A sample of what, sirrah?”
“Of your advice, of course.”
“Oh.” Her brow cleared. “Certainly, Sir Norton.”
“If the universe and everything in it doubled in size in an instant, would anybody notice anything different?” This was another question that had frustrated him, because his answer had differed from that of everyone else. Such differings had set him apart from his peer group, perhaps putting him on a path to self-isolation in the wilderness, where philosophy and reality were one. He believed this was another good question for the occasion.
Excelsia pondered prettily. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I mean, sirrah, if everything were twice as big, including the yardsticks and people, there really wouldn’t be any change, would there?”
That was the standard answer. “But what about the square-cube ratio?”
“The what?” she asked, perplexed.
“The surface area of objects increases by the square, while volume increases by the cube,” he explained. “If you doubled the diameter of the planet and the height of the man standing on it, his mass would multiply by a factor of eight and the mass of the planet by a similar factor, so his actual weight would be something like sixty-four times as much as before, while the cross section of his legs would be only four times as much. The burden on each square inch of his feet would be about sixteen times the prior burden-without strengthening his flesh. He would collapse and die in short order; it would be like standing on Jupiter- “
“Oh,” she said blankly. “I’ve never been to Jupiter. Are you sure?”
“It’s why ants aren’t the size of elephants. The squarecube ratio prevents them from achieving such great size without changing form radically.”
“But the big termites- “
Excellent point! Scientifically, those monsters were impossible! But he had the answer. “Magic changes things, of course. Without magic, those huge termites could not exist.”
“Then-with magic, the universe could double!”
Another nice point; she was certainly smarter than Dursten. But her point was flawed. “Magic is limited to planetary range. Sections of the universe are not magic; these would perish. The laws of science, in contrast, are universal, so science is what applies here. Thus, where magic overrides science, as here, huge termites are possible, but the doubling of the universe remains impossible.”
“That’s for shore!” Dursten agreed. “I never had no truck with none o’that there magic.”
Norton had eliminated Excelsia as an independent thinker; she, like Dursten, knew less than he did. The dream-world hypothesis, so far, was two for two. “You may step down. Damsel.”
She stepped out of the alcove, seeming perfectly normal now that her interview was over. She brought out a little mirror and checked her makeup.
“Must be your turn,” Norton said to the Alicorn. “Want to try an alcove?”
“An Alicove!” Dursten said, chuckling. The Alicorn shrugged and stepped into the third. This one turned out to be larger than it looked; there was room. He put his forehooves on the footprints and froze. “Hello, Alicorn,” Norton said. “Can you speak?” The Alicorn animated. Telepathically, he projected. But I am not exactly the animal at the moment. “I understand.”
“I shore don’t,” Dursten said. “What in space is going on?”
“The Alicorn is telepathic,” Excelsia said. “Everyone knows that.”
The spaceman was silent, embarrassed. Obviously he hadn’t known-and neither had Norton. It seemed the Alicorn generally didn’t bother to communicate that way to people with whom he was not tame.
Will you accept my advice?
“First I must question you.”
Proceed.
“This is a scientific question. You are a magical creature. Can you handle it?”
In this guise I can.
“It is said, scientifically, that the mass of an object increases as that object is accelerated toward the velocity of light. Thus nothing can actually reach the speed of light, because its mass would become infinite.”
True.
“But what, then, of light itself? Doesn’t its mass become infinite-thus preventing it from achieving its set velocity?”
Light is massless, so is not affected.
“But it bends around stars. It is affected by gravity, and gravity is the force that acts on mass. Light must have mass.”
The Alicorn sent no thought; he was unable to answer.
Norton dismissed him and moved to the final alcove. The Bemme entered it, settling her base on the footprints. She froze.
He went through the ritual, animating her in the new office. He asked her his most difficult question: “Are you conversant with the scientific theory of relativity?”
“Naturally. We Bems grasped it long before Man did.”
“Then you know that when a spaceman takes off from Earth and accelerates to a significant fraction of the velocity of light, he experiences the phenomenon of time dilation. For him and his ship, time seems to slow, so that at the end of a trip of perhaps a month, he returns from the far reaches of the galaxy to discover that the folk back on Earth have aged maybe centuries and all his friends are gone.”
“Shore, any fool knows that!” Dursten put in. “Happens all the time. That’s why a true spaceman’s got to love‘ em and leave‘ em; they’re old hags when he makes port again.”
“Continue,” the Bemme said.
“But a prime tenet of special relativity is that everything is relevant; there is no absolute standard of rest. So, while from Earth the spaceman seems to be traveling at nearly light-speed and suffering time dilation, the effect is opposite from the spaceman’s view. To him. Earth is traveling at nearly light-speed and suffering the time dilation. So when he rejoins Earth, he should discover that the folk on Earth have aged only a fraction as much as he has. How do you resolve this paradox?”
“There is no paradox,” the Bemme said. “Though for a while each party perceives the other as functioning more slowly than itself, this is largely a matter of perspective.”
“Perspective? They can’t both be right!”
“Perspective,” she repeated firmly. “If you are on one spaceship, and I am on another, and our ships drift apart in space, to each of us the other’s ship will appear smaller than his own, together with the people in it. The instruments of each will measure that diminution of size in the other. Each viewer is correct-but this is perspective, not paradox.”
“Say, I never thought of it that way!” Norton exclaimed. “Me neither,” Dursten said.
“The human species does tend to cogitate shallowly,” the Bemme agreed politely.
“Hey, watch it with them dirty words!” the spaceman said.
“But does this mean,” Norton asked, wrestling with the paradox of perspective, “that when the spaceman returns to Earth, there will be no difference in their time frames? Once the distortion of perspective is eliminated?”
“No, there will indeed be a difference, though not as great as perspective made it seem. The spaceman will have aged less than the folk on Earth.”
“But then the principle of relativity-the apparent slowing of the Earth, from the spaceman’s viewpoint- “
“Perspective does not change reality,” the Bemme said patiently. “Despite your planet’s apparent slowing, from the spaceman’s perspective, there is a distinction. He ages less.”
“Now I can’t accept that just on your say-so! What dis- “
“The distinction of acceleration. The spaceman experiences it; Earth does not. To each party, the other is retreating at increasing velocity, but only the spaceman feels the extra gees. This distinguishes his condition from that of Earth or the rest of the universe; his time is slowed.”
“Acceleration? Why should that-?”
“Besides,” Dursten put in, “he decelerates when he comes home, so it cancels out.” He seemed to have forgotten which side of the issue he was on.
“There is no such thing as deceleration,” the Bemme said. “There is only negative acceleration, which is to say, acceleration in the opposite direction. The spaceman accelerates twice-when he is departing from Earth and when he returns to it.”
“Very well,” Norton said. “So he accelerates twice. What has that to do with time?”
“Everything. It is easier to understand in the frame of general relativity, which relates to gravity. Gravity slows time, literally-and the effects of gravity are indistinguishable from those of acceleration. So when the spaceman accelerates, or as Dursten so quaintly puts it, decelerates, his time slows-regardless of the temporary effects of perspective.”
“Gravity slows time?” Norton asked dully.
“Certainly. The effect reaches its extreme at the so called event horizon of a so-called black hole, which is a stellar object of such density and mass that gravity increases to the point at which light itself can not escape, and time slows to eternity. Thus the spaceman bold enough to travel there would become truly timeless.”
“But nothing escapes from a black hole!” Norton protested. “How can we ever know what goes on there?”
“Three ways. First, we have worked it out theoretically, in the form of the general theory of relativity. Second, we have tested it by experimenting with lesser levels of acceleration and gravity; it has been verified that the intensity of gravity does affect a clock. Third, we have explored black holes magically and recorded the effects there. In this manner, magic, far from opposing science, facilitates it.”
“So there is no clock paradox?” Norton asked weakly.
“Correct,” the Bemme agreed. “And, I might add, your other questions were somewhat deficient in aptness. You confused the theoretical work of Galileo with that of Newton and misstated their conclusions; and as for the infinite mass of anything traveling at light-speed, you failed to take cognizance of the fact that an infinite series can have a finite total. Mass and energy are merely different aspects of the same reality; mass is merely solidified energy. So when an object accelerates toward C, or light-speed, the energy required to- “
“Enough!” Norton cried, his mind spinning. The Bemme obviously knew more than he did, and was teaching him things he had never grasped before and could not now dismiss as nonsense. This was the mind he had been seeking. “I will accept your advice.”
“An excellent decision,” the Bemme said, stepping out of the alcove. “What is your problem?”
“I’m stuck in this frame and I need to get back to Earth. How do I return?”
“You never left Earth,” she told him. “That should have been obvious to you the moment you remembered that magic is limited to planetary scale; you can not tour the universe by magic.”
“You mean I am in a dream? Then how do I wake?”
“You are not in a dream. You are in an illusion fostered by the Father of Illusion. You must find a way to perceive reality with certainty; that will vanquish the illusion.”
“An illusion?” Norton asked, still reeling. “Are you an-?”
“No. I am what I seem-a creature alien to your planet. I needed a job, and your Figure of Evil hired me for this role.”
Norton looked at the others. “And they-?”
“They, too, are role players-but they don’t know it. For them, the roles have become reality. This is perhaps just as well, for it prevents them from realizing they are damned.”
“And you are not?”
“I am not of your socio-political-religious frame. I have no attachment to your Incarnative figures of Good or Evil. I deal with them on a purely practical basis. Your damnation does not relate to me. When I tire of this job, I will seek some other.”
“How do I perceive reality, then?”
“That I can not tell you. I can describe reality to you in superlatively accurate detail, but only you can perceive it. As with any natural function, you must do it yourself.”
Surely true! “But if I am on Earth, why do I perceive the make-believe world of the Magic-Lantern Cloud? I mean, now that I know- “
“I have some difficulty grasping the irrationalities of your species,” the Bemme confessed. “I presume you find some private satisfaction in the perceptions you maintain, and the Lord of Buzzbugs caters to this innate propensity.”
“Buzzbugs?”
“I think you call them flies. Small creatures with pretty eyes. On my planet we call them buzzbugs, because their tentacles buzz as they levitate.”
The Bemme was a real font of information! Perhaps almost too much information. “Um, Sning-do you know how I can break out?”
Squeeze.
“But I have to figure out how, so you can confirm it?”
Squeeze.
Norton sighed. He had made significant progress, but it seemed he had a long way to go yet.
He pondered a moment. “Would getting the null-psi amulet the Genius wants help me?”
“No,” the Bemme said, while Sning squeezed once.
Oops-opposite signals! Which one should he trust? Well, he would ask. “Sning says the amulet would help me, but you say it wouldn’t. How can I tell which of you is right?”
“We’re both right,” the Bemme said, and Sning Squeezed once.
“But you can’t be! Your answers are opposite!”
“I shall explain, since you seem to have some difficulty grasping selective aspects of truth. If you get the amulet and take it to the Genius, he will use psi to transport you back to the real world. In that sense the amulet will help you. But that process will take so long, because of the hurdles you must pass to reach and win the amulet, that by the time you return to reality, Satan will have completed his designs and your effort to balk him will be wasted. In addition, he will still be able to send you back into this illusion at will, forcing you to obtain the amulet again to get out, playing by his rules. Therefore the amulet will not help you in the way you need; it will merely give you the illusion of help. Sning is less sophisticated than I am and lacks the superior objectivity of being alien, so could only provide you with the limited immediate truth. When you ask an inadequate question, he is at a disadvantage.”
Squeeze!
Norton winced; that had been a sharp constriction! He realized that he had been giving Sning trouble all along, asking wrong questions, so that the little snake had had to give hesitant yeses or noes, or throw up his nonexistent hands with triple squeezes.
“Then how can I return to reality fast enough to balk Satan?” he asked after a pause.
“Here I have the disadvantage of being alien,” the Bemme said, though she did not seem perturbed about it. “I have no problem perceiving reality, but, of course, I have better eyes than you do. I can not reach into your mind and change your perception. Because I am immune to psi, I have none myself. All I can do is give you my intelligent advice when you ask for it.”
“Do you know how I can return, Sning?”
Squeeze.
There it was again; the one who could speak could not give him the answer, while the one who had the answer could not speak. Satan, if he happened to be watching this, probably found the irony delicious. If the occasion ever came for Chronos to torment Satan the way Satan had tormented him...
“Well, maybe the others can help,” Norton said without much hope. He turned to the group, who had been ignoring this dialogue. “Have any of you any notion how I can return to, uh. Earth quickly?”
“Why, shore, pardner,” Dursten said. “Just put that there squeeze dingus on the Bemme and let‘ em talk in overdrive. They’re both a heap smarter’n we are.”
Norton gaped. So obvious a solution! “Okay, Sning?”
Squeeze.
Norton held out his hand, and the Bemme held out a tentacle. Sning uncurled, crawled across, and curled around her appendage.
There followed a wait, while the Bemme and Sning communicated. Then she held out her tentacle, and the little snake returned to Norton.
“We must proceed to the third chamber,” the Bemme said, and Sning squeezed.
“But that’s the route for finding the amulet!” Norton cried. “You just told me the amulet wouldn’t- “
“It looks as if we’re searching for the amulet,” the Bemme explained. “That will keep the Eviler Sorceress off our tentacles until we accomplish our purpose.”
Good notion! “Very well-let’s go to the third chamber.”
“A precaution will be necessary,” the Bemme said. “You must be deprived of your senses.”
“What?” Norton demanded, partly outraged, partly nervous.
“In your culture there is the narrative of your historical figure Odysseus,” she said. “He wished to see and listen to the sirens, but to do so was death, for he would then throw himself into the savage sea and drown or wreck his ship with all aboard, trying to reach them. So his crewmen tied him to the mast, while they blocked their own hearing. In that fashion he heard the sirens and survived. Human beings are very foolish.”
“You mean I will see and hear things that will madden me?”
“And smell, taste, and feel them,” the Bemme added. “The Eviler Sorceress has saved her worst for last.”
“But we’re outside her formal maze! Between the walls! There shouldn’t be any- “
“We are merely in another aspect of it. We never left this maze.”
“Oh. But this business about- “
“Temporary. I will cover your head, shielding you from the blandishments, allowing only oxygen to pass in. You will don Bat Dursten’s space gauntlets. That will protect you from the worst of it. You will ride the Alicorn, and Dursten and Excelsia will guard your flanks. That should get you through, if you heed Sning’s warnings.”
“But if it’s that dangerous, what about the rest of you?”
“We are all role players, here to facilitate your diversion. You are the target; the effects will not affect us.”
“This is the way it has to be, Sning?”
Squeeze.
Sning and the Bemme had certainly worked it out in that brief interval of private dialogue!
The Bemme assumed the form of a hood, which Norton put over his head. He was afraid it would feel suffocating, but she was true to her word: there was pure, sweet oxygen inside.
He donned the gauntlets, which were designed to protect hands from interstellar vacuum, and mounted the Alicorn with a boost from someone. He felt like a condemned criminal being hauled to the gallows.
The Alicorn moved. For a few paces everything was routine. Norton was aware only of motion, for no sound, light, or smell penetrated the living hood. Then the atmosphere changed.
First, something seemed to touch his gauntleted hands. It was the merest hint, filtered through the impermeable material, yet it suggested the sleek body of a beautiful and vibrant woman or the controls of a finely machined, high-performance racing car. He wanted to get a better feel, so he started to draw off one gauntlet.
Squeeze, squeeze!
Oh. The temptation of Odysseus was upon him! For the first time in his life Norton experienced some sympathy for the ancient Greek warrior. But he left the gloves alone.
Then something brushed about his head. It was a hint of perfumed music, ineffably sweet, as of a lovely garden glade with flowers blooming and a damsel with a dulcimer-the kind of place he longed to enter and remain in. But he could not perceive it clearly through the hood. So he reached up to pull it off-
Squeeze! SQUEEZE!
Damn! He had to desist, but he was furious at what he was giving up. That garden of delights-
The beast moved on-and somehow Norton felt the presence of a book or wise man or computer terminal containing the answers to all the most perplexing and fascinating riddles of the universe. All the myriad little mysteries that had nagged at him, from the punch line to a joke others had found uproarious and he had not quite heard, to the nature of Ultimate Reality. He had to see that book! He-
Squeeze! SQUEEZE!
“The hell with you!” he snapped, wrenching at the hood.
Something fettered his arms, so he could not pull, and the hood clenched itself stiflingly close about his head. He heaved off the encumbrances and grabbed the hood with both hands. It stretched like taffy, but did not come off. He clawed at it in a frenzy, but his gauntlets made him clumsy. Feverishly he tore them off.
The Alicorn leaped, almost dislodging him. He had to grab for the mane for support. That delayed his attack on the hood, and in a moment the desire waned.
Now the hood relaxed. It slid away from his face, coursed down to the ground, and re-formed into the Bemme.
“We made it!” Dursten said. “But you shore fought that there hood, Nort, like you was suffocating!”
Norton’s head cleared. “If that was the filtered siren song, I never would have made it through the unfiltered one! Even now, I’d like to go back and- “
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Shucks, Nort, it’s just quicksand and maggots there,” Dursten said. “You’d just sink in over your head.”
“I can’t believe that! That beautiful music- “
“Here, I’ll show you. Bemme, make like a danged floodlight.”
The Bemme convoluted into a floodlight mounted on a stand. The spaceman flicked the switch to ON and the beam of light speared out, striking a distant wall. Dursten swiveled the beam down to the ground where the tracks of the Alicorn showed.
A hundred feet back, those traces disappeared into a monstrous roiling bog. Tiny highlights of white showed, wriggling in and out of the muck-the maggots.
“We had to walk right through that. Ugh!” Excelsia said, wrinkling her nose. “Fortunately, the Alicorn was able to pick the shallowest point to cross. He couldn’t fly, because we had to stay close enough to stop you from taking off the hood. One misstep, and we all would have been drowned in it.”
Now Norton saw the caked, maggoty mud on their legs and shoes. They had done it, all right. Excelsia and the Alicorn especially had made a sacrifice, for otherwise they could have flown over the muck. “Thank you, friends!” he said humbly.
“We’re not really your friends,” the Bemme murmured. “We are simply playing our assigned roles.”
“Maybe you are,” Norton replied. “But they don’t realize they are playing roles, you said. So they’re as good friends as any other kind, aren’t they?”
“I stand corrected,” the alien agreed. “It is a human nuance of interpretation.”
Norton turned to face the other way. There was the third chamber; a door in a wall was marked: 3-D CHAMBER. “Well, let’s go in.”
“This you must do alone,” the Bemme said, returning to her natural bug-eyed state. She had spoken before from a speaker grille in the floodlight. “Our perceptions are not precisely yours. Even Sning’s are not yours, though he understands what you perceive. You must align your perception of reality yourself by your own effort; only then will you be in control. We wish you well.”
“Shore do,” Dursten said.
“If you succeed,” Excelsia said, “promise you will return at least to say good-bye.” There was a delicate tear in her eye.
“I will,” Norton agreed. He put his hand on the knob and turned it. The round door opened in the old-fashioned way, swiveling out on hinges. Beyond the circular port that was revealed was only blackness.
He stepped through-and found himself suspended in deep space as the door swung closed behind him. Its closure cut off Excelsia’s candlelight; with the darkness, the stars shone all around with preternatural clarity, and the ribbon of the Milky Way wound its snaky course in a great circle. To the rear, where the door had been, the sun blazed-but somehow it did not wipe out the other stars. He could see everything in a way never before possible.
“What do I do now?” he asked, noting that his cloak had spread out to protect him from the vacuum and radiation of deep space. It didn’t seem to matter whether he was in reality or illusion; he was comfortable.
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
Oh, yes-he had to figure it out for himself. “But I am safe here, whatever I do?”
Squeeze.
What he had to do was align his perception to reality. Evidently this chamber provided the mechanism, if only he could figure out how to use it.
Well, this was the naked universe. He was Chronos. He could take a better look at it, traveling in time. Since he knew he would have to travel far to see any significant change, he willed the Hourglass to virtually maximum effect, turning the sand to its most intense red. “Forward in time-to the end of the universe!” he proclaimed grandly. “Sning, give me a squeeze when each billion years passes, just so I know.”
He started off. The location-spell remained on, so he remained where he was in the galaxy-but it changed about him. Individual stars waxed and waned, some becoming brighter, some dimmer, and their constellations distorted into unrecognizability. New constellations formed, flexed, and dissolved. He knew it was all in his perspective, as stars shifted positions relative to his location, but it did make for an effect of almost-living animation.
Every so often there were supernovas, flashing with phenomenal brilliance and vanishing. He realized that his accelerated time travel made them as brief to him as the flashes of flashbulbs, but still they were bright in passing! He began to perceive a pattern to the changing positions of the more stable stars, patches of stars, and clouds of gas and dust. The galaxy was rotating, turning more rapidly in the center than at the edge, as if stirred by a cosmic spoon. Once he realized that, his perception became truly three-dimensional, and he saw himself as part of the giant, viscous mix of material. The galaxy had seemed stationary when he had been fixed in time; now he saw it as a porridge of stars and dust. In fact, the dust was stretched out in great spirals, moving outward from the center, and at the fringes of those bands of dust the stars were thickest and brightest, for the dust was their raw material. Stars did not form from mere contractions of gas amidst vacuum; they were squeezed into life by the tidal fluxes of the galaxy itself, like eddy whorls against the shifting dust.
Squeeze.
Oh, yes-a billion years had passed! Entranced, he continued to watch. Having analyzed the pattern of the great rotating galactic disk, he was now able to perceive the broader universe beyond, the neighboring galaxies, moving and spinning in their own courses and gradually drawing together. Stars kept moving in on their dust banks and disappearing into them, while the bands themselves snaked out toward the extremes. The galactic centers grew brighter.
Squeeze.
Another billion years already! He was still accelerating in time, but also becoming more absorbed by the wonder of the universe about him, so that time seemed to pass faster, anyway. Objective, subjective-what was the truer definition of time? Fascinated by the moving panorama of space, Norton began to trace the patterns of whole galactic clusters. His perspective kept expanding as he came to understand the more fundamental motions of the universe.
Squeeze.
Now it was easier to see how the galaxies were all converging on a single region of space, like shining pinwheels rolling in to a rendezvous. And the galaxies themselves were changing as they went, their centers becoming brighter despite the flow of dust and stars out from them.
Squeeze.
After that he pretty much ignored the squeeze markers, for they were coming faster as his sphere of awareness expanded. It almost seemed as if the universe were shrinking.
Suddenly a band of dust and gas passed across his region, momentarily blotting out his vision. When it passed, the sun was gone. Startled, he cast about for it; he had tuned it out in his effort to perceive the patterns of motion of the farther galactic clusters. It was definitely gone.
Well, how many billions of years had passed now? Six, eight? Mankind would not feel the loss! He let the sun go with momentary regret and refocused on the universe at large, which was really more interesting.
It was definitely shrinking. He verified this by fixing his attention on one particular spot and gauging the contraction of galactic groups around it. His perception seemed to have accommodated the enormous distances separating galaxies, so that he could know where they were even though, theoretically, it took billions of years for the light of the farthest ones to reach him. Perhaps this was because he himself was traveling rapidly in time; he didn’t have to wait on the normal speed of light. Or maybe it was simply another facet of the magic of the Hourglass.
Shrinking? How could that be? The universe was supposed to be expanding!
Yet as the billions of years squeezed by, ten, eleven, twelve, he became certain; the universe was indeed contracting. It became small enough for him to see completely, then smaller yet. Dismayed and enthralled, he watched it form into a giant globe perhaps four billion light-years across. The galaxies were becoming quasars, with hugely radiating centers and tenuous umbras of dust and gas, and these dissolved into formless waves, much as the individual stars had dissolved into the dust clouds before. The universe became a great ball of gases and energy that then compressed into a mass of plasma less than a billion light-years in diameter, a super-duper nova.
It shrank into the size of a single quasar, then, so rapidly it was an eyeblink, into the size of a single planet, and disappeared.
Norton stared at the distant point of nothingness. If this was to be the way the universe ended, winking out in fifteen billion years or so, how did that differ from the manner in which it had begun? Perplexed, Norton reversed directions, turning the sand its most intense blue, and willed himself back in time.
The universe reversed. The ball of plasma reappeared from nothing, expanding ferociously. He was unable to distinguish energy radiation from matter; they were inextricably mixed. Now Norton noticed some things he had missed before. In this version, a great deal of energy seemed to be forming from nothing, even as the expansion occurred, so that, though the ball was exploding at lightspeed, the universe itself was multiplying much faster than that. It was as if a shock wave were traveling out ahead of the light, triggering the condensation of energy from whatever unknowable recess it had hidden in. But, of course, he was traveling backward in time now, which meant that that energy had actually converted into nothing before the remainder squeezed into the singularity of the black hole and winked out entirely.
How could that be? He had understood that matter and energy were fairly permanent, and here they were disexisting freely. In the ripples of energy as he now perceived them, matter coalesced, as if light were being bent around so tightly that it rolled up against itself and formed tiny balls of energy that developed a certain stability of their own. But when two balls touched each other, one of them spinning in one direction, the other in another, they burst like soap bubbles and vanished in total energy. Thus the forming matter was promptly destroying itself, renewing the explosion, generating more turbulence and eddies that spun out more bits of matter. Except that in actuality, he reminded himself again, it was the other way around; energy was forming matter implosively, and the implosive condensation then unwrapped to form new beams of energy that arrowed in toward the final extinction of singularity, of nonexistence. This was nonsense!
He continued to watch as billions of years squeezed back. The turbulence of the explosion imparted a slight rotation, and this spin caused the majority of the lightballs to curl up in one direction, so that soon all of the oppositespinning balls were eliminated by cancellation and matter stopped destroying itself. The remaining matter coalesced into dusty masses, still rushing outward from the common center. The masses had their own rotations and formed into crude disks that solidified in the centers, compressing until the pressure was so great that ignition occurred, and suddenly they were quasars. Still the centers intensified, until they became black holes that expanded, swallowing much of the brilliance and sucking additional matter in long spiral trails. Now they were galaxies, structured as spiraling fodder for their central appetites. There was no hunger in the universe like that of a black hole!
Except, again, that this was backward. How could a black hole spew out matter continuously like that, until it disappeared? That simply was not the nature of such things! A black hole, with certain very limited exceptions, was strictly a one-way affair. What went in did not come out. Except, the Bemme had said, in the case of magic. And the force of magic did not reach out on galactic scale; it was confined to the radius of a typical planet, like Earth. Everyone knew that. That was why they used matter transmitters for interplanetary travel. Even ghosts had to use such modern conveniences, as Gawain had. Had the Bemme told him wrong?
This bothered him. If the alien had lied or been in error, he, Norton, had placed his trust in the wrong entity. He was reluctant to believe that, partly because he liked the Bemme and partly because that would leave him back on circle one. How, then, could he rationalize her statement about magic and black holes?
Aha! Black holes come in all sizes, from supergalactic to pinhead. A pinhead black hole could be used for experimental purpose, even moved about, provided one did not do anything foolish like poking a finger at it. The better laboratories had pinholes. Certainly it was possible to test magic on a hole. So the Bemme had not been refuted. That was a relief, and he could proceed with his current tour.
How could a black hole be reversed? Answer: not this way! Theoretically, a black hole could become overheated so that it exploded, but it could not pay out material a bit at a time. So either what he was seeing was wrong, or-
Or he was, in fact, seeing it backward.
He looked at the Hourglass. The sand was intense blue. He was supposed to be traveling backward, from normal future to normal past-but was he?
Then he had another revelation. Satan was the Father of Lies and the Master of Illusion; why couldn’t he craft an illusion that changed the colors of the sand of the Hourglass? Obvious answer: he could-and he would! That would be far, far easier than creating a whole world that ran backward. That explained how Norton was able to relate one-to-one with the role players here-they were living forward, while he was living backward-for him.
He remembered how the sand of the Hourglass had shown green upon his return from a prior visit-the color of universal time. He had not set it there-not consciously: Obviously he had set it there-thinking the color was white, his normal backward course. Satan had tricked him into supposing green was white and red was blue. Black and yellow seemed to have been left alone; that change would have been too obvious. If he had gone to black to freeze time, and found himself careering through space instead, he would have known something was wrong. So only the directions of time had been changed-the normal and accelerated modes. Very neatly done; it had certainly fooled him. Each visit to the “contraterrene” frame must, in fact, have been a reversal of time he had just spent on Earth. Satan had had to free him before he overlapped a prior reversal and ran afoul of the threeperson limit.
How long did he have this time? He wasn’t sure, because he had been operating in the drawkcab mode, undoing Satan’s damage of eight years in the past. He had been about six hours between the departure of Satan’s minion horn-demon and the onset of his effort to neutralize that minion; did these periods cancel out or add on, in the present? Evidently the latter, since he lived subjectively through both of them. But didn’t some of that time already overlap his adventure with Excelsia and the Alicorn and the Sword Elf? He wasn’t sure how to figure it, but suspected that Satan had made sure to allow enough time for this present diversion so that Norton would arrive back on Earth too late to foil his mischief. Probably if he got the null-psi amulet and took it to the Genius, the Genius would agree to transport him back to Earth just as his allotted time was up, anyway. What a conniving rogue was Satan!
Now he was zooming along the temporal length of the universe and knew that his perception of the sand of the Hourglass was wrong. Yet nothing had changed. How could he cancel the illusion?
Probably he had to be absolutely certain he was right, for uncertainty was the grist for exploitation by Satan. At the moment, he was not at all certain. He had figured out a theory to account for the discrepancies he had noted, but a theory was not a fact. He needed solid corroborative data.
Well, what in the universe was more solid than the universe itself? Suppose he explored it to the very end of time and satisfied himself that he knew its directions in time-shouldn’t that be enough for certainty? If it wasn’t, what was?
If he could not believe in the universe, he could not believe in anything. This chamber might be part of an illusion, but he suspected it was also a window to reality. He would travel to the end of the universe he saw here, seeking certainty.
He willed the sand to turn an even more intense blue, knowing that was reverse in color but correct in thrust. The universe accelerated, and Sning’s squeezes came more and more rapidly, until the billions of years were passing in seconds and Sning became more of a shudder than a series of squeezes. The universe flew apart at an awesome rate, the galaxies separating so rapidly they appeared blurred. Soon the local section of space was clear. In a sphere ten billion light-years across, there was no longer any matter at all, and very little energy. The hole in the torus.
Norton turned his attention to the retreating outer fringe. Again he was able to adapt, to spread his awareness to perceive objects on a vaster scale than any human being had perceived them before. The torus of galactic motes was now a hundred billion light-years out, and still expanding. This was an open universe, seemingly without end.
But those galaxies were still evolving themselves, getting consumed by their black-hole centers. The process was slow while the available free matter diminished, but it continued. In due course the ring of galaxies became a ring of black holes, each spaced a hundred billion lightyears or more from its nearest neighbor. The holes were detectable only by their declining halos of radiation, and even that was doomed. Finally nothing was visible; Norton knew their paths only by inference. A trillion lightyears out, and still the torus expanded, for there was nothing to stop it. Would it ever end?
Then something happened. In the far, far, far distance he perceived a detonation. It was another Big Bang, the explosion of a monstrous black hole. A new universe was forming!
He realized that this Bang had occurred directly in the path of one of the local universe’s far-flung holes. They had collided and overheated and burst apart. New energy and matter were generating in the region of this flux, as they had done so before.
He also realized that, just as some holes were pinhead size, so were some universe size. They were scattered through space (though space did not really exist in the absence of matter or energy-a quibble), rendered ever larger by the accumulation of stray radiation and dust and the debris from other worn-out universes, perhaps billions of such toruses. On occasion, a swiftly traveling galactic hole would collide with such a universe hole, like a neutron plowing into the nucleus of a uranium atom, and the impact would shatter both holes and cause the most massive possible explosion, augmented by the stress of space itself. In this manner were new universes born, his own included.
He continued to work it out as he watched the distant universe expand. Obviously not all galaxies became neutrons, and not all neutrons would strike larger holes headon with sufficient force to shatter them. Most would be captured in orbit about the larger holes and eventually swallowed peacefully. Thus the masses of larger holes would steadily increase as their number diminished. Perhaps there was a critical mass, beyond which a hole became unstable, ready to be detonated. Thus the detonation of new universes would be a regular thing, occurring every trillion years or less, each expiring in a grand flash of a few tens of billions of years before its black-hole ashes were absorbed by still-accumulating universes. Perhaps new universes were flowering continuously, scattered over such a wide region that no entity could perceive more than one at a time, not even Chronos. Surely his own universe had developed in that fashion, not remarkable at all, just a single brief spark in eternity.
All it took was a little matter and antimatter-that was why the secondary explosions occurred around a new universe, because of the dexter and sinister curls of matter formation-and time. Time.
And he was Chronos, the Incarnation of Time. The one entity permitted to grasp the true nature of reality.
Norton shook his head. “Satan, compared to this truth, your lies are of no consequence!”
It was time to return to his own tiny portion of his particular spark. He brought out the Hourglass and focused on its flowing sand. He was still traveling forward, and the sand was still blue-but as he looked at that lie, the color changed to red and he saw truly at last. He had penetrated Satan’s illusion and knew that he would never again be vulnerable to it.
He willed the sand blue again, this time to true blue, and the progress of time reversed. The distant universe began to contract. He wondered idly whether it had sapient creatures within it, living, loving, warring, and dreaming, performing minor exploits of science and magic, and whether any part of his long-gone physical body was incorporated into it, on the off chance that his own Milky Way Galaxy happened to be the neutron hole that had triggered this new effort. Perhaps a quark or two of him was there! “Good luck, you who follow us!” he cried.
Then that universe contracted back to its origin, and the hole from his own universe was ejected from it. It- and he-was on its way home.