The Second Randall Garrett Megapack. Randall Garrett

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СКАЧАТЬ certainly be something to tell in London—when and if he ever got back.

      He reached out a tentative finger and touched one of the symbol-marked studs.

      There was a loud click! in the stillness of the room, and he leaped back from the device. He watched it warily for a moment, but nothing more seemed to be forthcoming. Still, he decided it might be best to let things alone. There was no point in messing with things that undoubtedly controlled forces beyond his ability to cope with, or understand. After all, such a long time—

      He stopped, Time? Time?

      What had Contarini said about time? Something about its being like a river that flowed rapidly—that much he remembered. Oh, yes—and that it was almost impossible to try to swim backwards against the current or…something else. What?

      He shook his head. The more he tried to remember what his fellow prisoner had told him, the more elusive it became.

      He had traveled in time, that much was certain, but how far, and in which direction? Toward the future, obviously; Contarini had made it plain that going into the past was impossible. Then could he, Broom, get back to his own time, or was he destined to stay in this—place? Wherever and whenever it was.

      Evidently movement through the time-river had a tendency to disorganize a man’s memories. Well, wasn’t that obvious anyway? Even normal movement through time, at the rate of a day per day, made some memories fade. And some were lost entirely, while others remained clear and bright. What would a sudden jump of centuries do?

      His memory was improving, though. If he just let it alone, most of it would come back, and he could orient himself. Meanwhile, he might as well explore his surroundings a little more. He resolved to keep his hands off anything that wasn’t readily identifiable.

      * * * *

      There was a single oddly-shaped chair by the bulky table, and behind the chair was a heavy curtain which apparently covered a window. He could see a gleam of light coming through the division in the curtains.

      Broom decided he might as well get a good look at whatever was outside the building he was in. He stepped over, parted the curtains, and—

      —And gasped!

      It was night time outside, and the sky was clear. He recognized the familiar constellations up there. But they were dimmed by the light from the city that stretched below him.

      And what a city! At first, it was difficult for his eyes to convey their impressions intelligently to his brain. What they were recording was so unfamiliar that his brain could not decode the messages they sent.

      There were broad, well-lit streets that stretched on and on, as far as he could see, and beyond them, flittering fairy bridges rose into the air and arched into the distance. And the buildings towered over everything. He forced himself to look down, and it made him dizzy. The building he was in was so high that it would have projected through the clouds if there had been any clouds.

      Broom backed away from the window and let the curtain close. He’d had all of that he could take for right now. The inside of the building, his immediate surroundings, looked almost homey after seeing that monstrous, endless city outside.

      He skirted the table with its still-humming machine and walked toward the door that led to the other room. A picture hanging on a nearby wall caught his eye, and he stopped. It was a portrait of a man in unfamiliar, outlandish clothing, but Broom had seen odder clothing in his travels. But the thing that had stopped him was the amazing reality of the picture. It was almost as if there were a mirror there, reflecting the face of a man who stood invisibly before it.

      It wasn’t, of course; it was only a painting. But the lifelike, somber eyes of the man were focused directly on him. Broom decided he didn’t like the effect at all, and hurried into the next room.

      There were several rows of the bulky tables in here, each with its own chair. Broom’s footsteps sounded loud in the room, the echoes rebounding from the walls. He stopped and looked down. This floor wasn’t covered with the soft carpeting; it had a square, mosaic pattern, as though it might be composed of tile of some kind. And yet, though it was harder than the carpet it had a kind of queer resiliency of its own.

      The room itself was larger than the one he had just quitted, and not as well lit. For the first time, he thought of the possibility that there might be someone else here besides himself. He looked around, wishing that he had a weapon of some kind. Even a knife would have made him feel better.

      But there had been no chance of that, of course. Prisoners of war are hardly allowed to carry weapons with them, so none had been available.

      He wondered what sort of men lived in this fantastic city. So far, he had seen no one. The streets below had been filled with moving vehicles of some kind, but it had been difficult to tell whether there had been anyone walking down there from this height.

      Contarini had said that it would be…how had he said it? “Like sleeping for hundreds of years and waking up in a strange world.”

      Well, it was that, all right.

      Did anyone know he was here? He had the uneasy feeling that hidden, unseen eyes were watching his every move, and yet he could detect nothing. There was no sound except the faint humming from the device in the room behind him, and a deeper, almost inaudible, rushing, rumbling sound that seemed to come from far below.

      His wish for a weapon came back, stronger than before. The very fact that he had seen no one set his nerves on edge even more than the sight of a known enemy would have done.

      He was suddenly no longer interested in his surroundings. He felt trapped in this strange, silent room. He could see a light shining through a door at the far end of the room—perhaps it was a way out. He walked toward it, trying to keep his footsteps as silent as possible as he moved.

      The door had a pane of translucent glass in it, and there were more of the unreadable characters on it. He wished fervently that he could decipher them; they might tell him where he was.

      Carefully, he grasped the handle of the door, twisted it, and pulled. And, careful as he had been, the door swung inward with surprising rapidity. It was a great deal thinner and lighter than he had supposed.

      He looked down at it, wondering if there were any way the door could be locked. There was a tiny vertical slit set in a small metal panel in the door, but it was much too tiny to be a keyhole. Still—

      It didn’t matter. If necessary, he could smash the glass to get through the door. He stepped out into what was obviously a hallway beyond the door.

      * * * *

      The hallway stretched away to either side, lined with doors similar to the one he had just come through. How did a man get out of this place, anyway? The door behind him was pressing against his hand with a patient insistence, as though it wanted to close itself. He almost let it close, but, at the last second, he changed his mind.

      Better the devil we know than the devil we don’t, he thought to himself.

      He went back into the office and looked around for something to prop the door open. He found a small, beautifully formed porcelain dish on one of the desks, picked it up, and went back to the door. The dish held the door open an inch or so. That was good enough. If someone locked the door, he could still smash in the glass if he wanted to, but the absence of the dish when he СКАЧАТЬ