Slowly, inexorably, Silvester’s aged head swiveled on the broomstick neck. “I beg your pardon?” he said, in a quiet, frigid voice. “Did you have something to say?”
“That’s right,” Hamilton said; he couldn’t back out now. “I want to talk to you, Silvester. The seven of us have a bone to pick. And you’re on the other end.
* * * * *
In the corner, the television set showed a group of angels happily singing close-harmony versions of popular hymns. Faces vacant and empty, the angels swayed languidly back and forth, generating a mildly jazzy touch to the lugubrious cadences.
“We have a problem,” Hamilton said, his eyes on the old man. Probably, Silvester had the power to hurl the seven of them down into Hell. After all, this was his world; if anybody had pull with (Tetragrammaton), it was certainly Arthur Silvester.
“What problem is that?” Silvester asked. “Why aren’t the lot of you at prayer?”
Ignoring him, Hamilton continued, “We’ve made a discovery about our accident. How are your injuries mending, by the way?”
A smirk of calm satisfaction covered the withered face. “My injuries,” Silvester informed him, “are gone. Faith is responsible, not these meddling doctors. Faith and prayer will carry a man through any trial.” He added, “What you refer to as an ‘accident’ was the method by which Providence tested us. God’s way of discovering what kind of fiber we’re made out of.”
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Pritchet protested, smiling confidently. “I’m sure Providence wouldn’t subject people to such an ordeal.”
The old man studied her relentlessly. “The One True God,” he stated categorically, “is a stern God. He deals out punishment and reward as He sees fit. It is our fate to submit. Mankind was put here on this Earth to fulfill the Will of the Cosmic Authority.”
“Of the eight of us,” Hamilton said, “seven were knocked unconscious by the impact of the fall. One of us remained conscious. That was you.”
Silvester nodded in complacent agreement. “As I fell,” he explained, “I prayed to the One True God to protect me.”
“From what?” Miss Reiss broke in. “His own ordeal?”
Waving her away, Hamilton continued: “There was a lot of free energy running around the Bevatron. Normally, each individual has a unique frame of reference. But because we all lost consciousness while we were in the energy beam, and you didn’t—”
Silvester was not listening. He was gazing intently past Hamilton, toward Bill Laws. A righteous indignation glowed in his sunken cheeks. “Is that,” he said thinly, “a person of color standing there?”
“That’s our guide,” Hamilton said.
“Before we continue,” Silvester said evenly, “I’ll have to ask the colored person to step outside. This is the private quarters of a white man.”
What Hamilton said came from a level beyond careful reasoning. He had no excuse for saying it; the words rose too naturally and spontaneously to be defended. “The hell with you,” he said, and saw Silvester’s face turn bleak as stone. Well, it had happened. So he might as well do it right. “A white man? If that Second Bab or whatever it’s called, that (Tetragrammaton) rubbish you’ve invented, can sit back and listen to you say that, He’s more of a worthless, broken-down travesty of a god than you are of a man. Which is saying a lot.”
Mrs. Pritchet gasped. David Pritchet giggled. Stricken, Miss Reiss and Marsha involuntarily backed away. Laws stood rigid, his face pained and sardonic. Off in the corner, McFeyffe dully nursed his distended jaw and seemed barely to have heard.
Gradually, Arthur Silvester rose to his feet. He was no longer a man; he was an avenging force that transcended humanity. An agent of purification, he was defending his cultish deity, his country, the white race, and his personal honor all at once. For an interval he stood gathering his powers. A vibration shook through his gaunt frame; and from deep inside his body came a slow, gummy, poisonous hate. “I believe,” he said, “that you are a nigger lover.”
That’s so,” Hamilton agreed. “And an atheist and a Red. Have you met my wife? A Russian spy. Have you met my friend Bill Laws? Graduate student in advanced physics; good enough to sit down at the dinner table with any man alive. Good enough to—”
On the television screen, the chorus of mixed angels had ceased singing. The image wavered; dark waves of light radiated menacingly, a growing anger of fluid motion. The speaker no longer carried lachrymose music; now a dull rumble rattled the tubes and condensers. The rumble grew to an ear-splitting thunder.
From the television screen emerged four vast figures. They were angels. Big, brutish, masculine angels, with mean looks in their eyes. Each must have weighed two hundred pounds. Wings flapping, the four angels directed themselves toward Hamilton. His wrinkled face smirking, Silvester stepped back to enjoy the spectacle of heavenly vengeance striking down the blasphemer.
As the first angel descended to deliver the Cosmic Judgment, Hamilton knocked it cold. Behind him, Bill Laws swept up a table lamp. Leaping forward, he smashed the second angel over the head; stunned, the angel struggled to get hold of the Negro.
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Pritchet wailed. “Somebody call the police.”
It was hopeless. Off in the corner, McFeyffe awoke from his stupor and made a futile pass at one of the angels. A blast of clear energy lapped over him; very quietly, McFeyffe collapsed against the wall and lay still. David Pritchet, yelling excitedly, grabbed up bottles of medicine from the bedside table and lobbed them haphazardly at the angels. Marsha and Miss Reiss fought wildly, both of them hanging onto one hulking, dull-witted angel, dragging him down, lacking and scratching at him, pulling his feathers out in handfuls.
More angels soared from the television screen. Arthur Silvester watched with smug satisfaction as Bill Laws disappeared under a mound of vengeful wings. Only Hamilton remained, and there was little left of him. Coat torn, nose streaming blood, he was putting up a determined, last-ditch fight. Another angel went down, kicked squarely in the groin. But for every one put out of commission, a whole flock sailed from the twenty-seven-inch television screen and rapidly gained full stature.
Retreating, Hamilton backed toward Silvester. “If there was any justice in this stinky, run-down world of yours—” he gasped. Two angels leaped on him; blinded, choking, he felt his legs slide out from under him. With a cry, Marsha struggled to make her way over. Wielding a gleaming hatpin, she stabbed one of the angels in the kidney; the angel bellowed and let go of Hamilton. Snatching up a bottle of mineral water from the table, Hamilton swung it despairingly. The bottle exploded against the wall; shards of glass and foaming water spouted everywhere.
Sputtering, Arthur Silvester backed away. Miss Reiss collided with him; wary as a cat, she spun, gave him a violent shove, and scrambled away. Silvester, an astonished expression on his face, stumbled and fell. A corner of the bed rose to meet his brittle skull; there was a sharp crack as the two hit. Groaning, Arthur Silvester sagged into unconsciousness …
And the angels vanished.
The hubbub died. The television set became silent. Nothing remained but eight damaged human beings, strewn in various postures of injury and defense. McFeyffe was totally unconscious, and partly singed. Arthur Silvester lay inert, eyes glazed, tongue extended, one arm twitching reflexively. Bill Laws, sitting up, groped to pull himself to his feet. Terror-stricken, Mrs. Pritchet peeped into the room from the doorway, her soft face bubbling with dismay. David Pritchet stood winded, his arms still full of the apples and oranges he had been hurling.
Laughing hysterically, Miss Reiss cried, “We got him. We won. We won!”
Dazed, Hamilton gathered together the trembling form of his wife. Slim, panting, Marsha huddled against him. “Darling,” she whispered, eyes bright with tears, “it’s all right, isn’t it? It’s over.”
Against his face her soft brown hair billowed. Her skin, smooth and warm, pressed against his lips; her body was frail, slender, the light, lithe body he remembered. And the
sacklike garments were gone. In a trim little cotton blouse and skirt, Marsha hugged him in grateful, joyous relief.
“Sure,” Laws muttered, standing upright with effort. One closed eye was swelling ominously; his clothes were in tatters. “The old bastard is out. We knocked him cold—that did it. Now he’s no better than the rest of us. Now he’s unconscious, too.”
“We won,” Miss Reiss was repeating, with compulsive emphasis. “We escaped from his conspiracy.”
* * * * *
Doctors came racing from every part of the hospital. Most of the medical attention was directed toward Arthur Silvester. Grimacing weakly, the old man managed to clamber back into his chair before the television set.
Thank you,” he muttered. “I’m fine, thanks. I must have had a dizzy spell.”
McFeyffe, who was starting to revive, pawed happily at his jaw and neck; his multiple curses were gone. With a glad shout he ripped away the bandage and wadded cloth. “Gone!” he yelled. “Thank God!”
“Don’t thank God,” Hamilton reminded him drily. “Quit while you’re ahead.”
“What was going on up here?” a doctor demanded.
“A little scuffle.” Ironically, Laws indicated the box of strewn chocolates that had spilled from the bedside table. “Over who got the last buttercream.”
“There’s only one thing wrong,” Hamilton murmured, deep in preoccupied thought. “It’s probably just a technical matter.”
“What’s that?” Marsha asked, pressed tight against him.
“Your dream. Aren’t we all lying in the Bevatron, more or less unconscious? Aren’t we physically suspended in time?”
“Gosh,” Marsha said, sobered. “That’s so. But we’re back—we’re safe!”
“Apparently.” Hamilton could feel her heart bearing, and, more slowly, the rise and fall of her breathing. “And that’s what counts.” She was warm, soft, and wonderfully slim. “As long as I have you put together the way you were …”
His voice died away. In his arms, his wife was slim, all right. Too slim.
“Marsha,” he said quietly, “something has gone wrong.”
Instantly, her lithe body stiffened. “Wrong? What do you mean?”
“Take off your clothes.” Urgently, he caught hold of the zipper of her skirt. “Come on—hurry!”
Blinking, Marsha edged away from him. “Here? But darling, with all these people—”
“Come on!” he ordered sharply.
Bewildered, Marsha began unfastening her blouse. Slipping out of it, she tossed it on the bed and then bent to remove her skirt. Shocked and horrified, the group of people watched as she stepped from her underclothing and stood naked in the center of the room.
She was as sexless as a bee.
“Look at you,” Hamilton accused her savagely. “For God’s sake, look! Can’t you feel it?”
Astonished, Marsha glanced down at herself. Her breasts were totally gone. Her body was smooth, slightly angular, without primary or secondary sex characteristics of any sort. Slim, hairless, she might have been a young boy. But she wasn’t even that; she was nothing. Absolutely and unequivocally neuter.
“What …” she began, frightened. “I don’t understand.”
“We’re not back,” Hamilton said. “This isn’t our world.”
“But the angels,” Miss Reiss said. “They disappeared.”
Touching his normal-sized jaw, McFeyffe protested, “And my abscessed tooth’s okay.”
“This isn’t Silvester’s world, either,” Hamilton told him. “It’s somebody else’s. Some third party’s. Good Lord—we’ll never get back.” Agonized, he appealed to the stunned figures around him. “How many worlds are there? How many times is this going to happen?”
IX
strewn across the floor of the Bevatron lay eight persons. None of them was fully conscious. Around them lay littered and smoking ruin, the charred metal struts and concrete that had been the observation platform, the confused tangle of material on which they had once stood.
Like snails, medical workers crept cautiously down ladders into the chamber. It would not be long before the eight bodies were reached, before the power of the magnet had died and the humming stream of protons had dimmed into silence.
Tossing and turning in his bed, Hamilton studied the unceasing tableau. Again and again he examined it; every aspect of the scene was scrutinized. As he moved toward wakefulness, the scene dimmed. As he sank restlessly back into sleep the scene reemerged, clear, sharp and totally distinct.
Beside Hamilton, his wife twisted and sighed in her sleep. In the town of Belmont, eight persons were tossing and shifting, alternating between wakefulness and sleep, seeing again and again the fixed outlines of the Bevatron, the sprawled, crumpled figures.
Struggling to learn every detail of the scene, Hamilton contemplated each figure inch by inch.
First—and most compelling—was his own physical body. It had landed last. Striking the cement with stunning force, it lay sprawled sickeningly, arms extended, one leg crumpled under it. Except for vague, shallow breathing, it made no movement God, if there were only some way he could reach it … if he could shout at it, wake it up, bellow so loudly that it would rise out of the darkness of unconsciousness. But it was hopeless.
Not far off lay the slumped hulk of McFeyffe. The man’s thick face bore an expression of furious amazement; one hand was still extended to grab futilely at a railing that no longer existed. A trickle of blood leaked down his fat cheek. McFeyffe was injured; there was no doubt of that. His breathing came hoarsely, unevenly. Under his coat his chest rose and fell painfully.
Beyond McFeyffe lay Miss Joan Reiss. Half buried in rubble, she lay panting for breath, arms and legs reflexively struggling to push away the layer of plaster and concrete. Her glasses were smashed. Her clothing was rumpled and torn, and an ugly welt was rising on her temple.
His own wife, Marsha, was not far off. At the fixed, unmoving sight, Hamilton’s heart convulsed with sorrow. She, like the rest, could not be aroused. Unconscious, she lay with one arm bent under her, knees drawn up in a quasi-fetal posture, head turned on one side, singed brown hair spilled around her neck and shoulders. A slow flutter of breath stirred her lips; beyond that there was no motion. Her clothing was on fire; gradually, inexorably, a line of dull sparks made its way toward her body. A cloud of acrid smoke hovered over her, partially obscuring her slender legs and feet. One high-heeled shoe had been torn completely off; it lay a yard or so away, forlorn and abandoned.
Mrs. Pritchet was a tubby mound of pulsing flesh, grotesque in her gaudy flowered dress now terribly burned. Her fantastic hat had been mashed to remnants by falling plaster. Her purse, torn from her hands by the impact, was strewn open; its contents lay in confusion on all sides of her.
Almost lost in the debris was David Pritchet. Once the boy groaned. Once he stirred. A section of twisted metal lay over his chest, preventing him from rising. It was toward him that the snail-paced medical teams were moving. What the hell was the matter with them? Hamilton wanted to scream, to bellow hysterically. Why didn’t they hurry? Four nights had passed …
But not there. In that world, the real world, only a few terrible seconds had gone by.
Among heaps of tattered safety screen lay the Negro guide, Bill Laws. His lank body twitched; eyes open and glazed, he gazed sightlessly at a smoking heap of organic matter. The heap was the thin, brittle body of Arthur Silvester. The old man had lost consciousness … the pain and shock of his broken back had driven away the last spark of personality. Of them all, he was the most injured.
There they lay, eight singed and terribly crumpled bodies. A discouraging sight. But Hamilton, tossing and turning in his comfortable bed, beside his slim and lovely wife, would have given anything on earth to find himself back there. To return to the Bevatron and rouse his inanimate physical counterpart … and thereby pry his mental self out of the wandering rut in which it was lost.
* * * * *
/> In all possible universes, Monday was the same. At eight-thirty a.m., Hamilton was seated on the Southern Pacific commuters’ train, a San Francisco Chronicle spread out on his lap, on his way up the coast to the Electronics Development Agency. Assuming, of course, that it existed. As yet, he couldn’t tell.
Around him, listless white-collar workers smoked and read the comics and discussed sports. Hunched over in his seat, Hamilton moodily considered them. Did they know they were distorted figments of somebody’s fantasy world? Apparently not. Placidly, they went about their Monday routine, unaware that every aspect of their existence was being manipulated by an invisible presence.
It wasn’t hard to guess the identity of that presence.
Probably, seven of the eight members of the group had figured it out by now. Even his wife. At breakfast, Marsha had faced him solemnly and said, “Mrs. Pritchet I thought about it all night. I’m positive.”
“Why are you positive?” he had asked acidly.
“Because,” Marsha answered, with absolute conviction, “she’s the only one who would believe this sort of thing.” She ran her hands over her flat body. “It’s exactly the sort of silly, Victorian nonsense she’d put over on us.”
If there was any doubt in his mind, it was resolved by a sight glimpsed as the train sped out of Belmont. Standing obediently in front of a small rural shack was a horse attached to a cart full of scrap iron: rusty sections of abandoned autos. The horse was wearing trousers.
“South San Francisco,” the conductor brayed, appearing at the end of the swaying coach. Pocketing his paper, Hamilton joined the meager crowd of businessmen moving toward the exit. A moment later he was striding gloomily toward the sparkling white buildings that were the Electronics Development Agency. At least the company existed … that was a helpful start. Crossing his fingers, he prayed fervently that his job was a part of this world.