Worlds of Maybe

by Robert Silverberg

  The flashlight stabbed at the earth. The ground was ploughed. It was softened by the hands of men. Minott kept the light on as little gasps of thankfulness arose. Then he said sardonically:

  “Do you know what this crop is? It's lentils. Are lentils grown in Virginia? Perhaps! We’ll see what sort of men these may happen to be!”

  He swung to follow the line of the furrows. Tom Hunter said miserably:

  “If that’s ploughed ground, it’s a dam’ shallow furrow. A one-horse plough’d throw up more dirt than that!”

  A light glowed palely in the distance. Every person in the party saw it at the same instant. As if by instinct, the head of every horse swerved for it.

  “We’ll want to be careful,” said Blake quietly. “These may be Chinese, too.”

  The light was all of a mile distant. They moved over the ploughed ground cautiously. . . .

  Suddenly the hoofs of Lucy Blair’s horse rang on stone. The noise was startlingly loud. Other horses, following hers, clattered thunderously. Minott flashed down the light again. Dressed stone. Cut stone. A roadway built of dressed stone blocks, some six or eight feet wide. Then one of the horses shivered and snorted. It pranced agitatedly, edging away from something on the road. Minott swept the flashlight beam along the narrow way.

  “The only race,” he said dryly, “that ever built roads like these was the Romans. They made their military roads like this. But they didn’t discover America that we know of.”

  The beam touched something dark. It came back and steadied. One of the girls uttered a stifled exclamation. The beam showed dead men. One was a man with shield and sword and a helmet such as the soldiers of ancient Rome are pictured as having worn. He was dead. Half his head had been blown off. Lying atop him there was a man in a curious gray uniform. He had died of a sword-wound.

  The beam searched around. More bodies. Many Roman-accoutred figures. Four or five men in what looked remarkably like the uniform that might be worn by soldiers of the Confederate Army—if a Confederate Army could be supposed to exist.

  “There’s been fighting,” said Blake, composedly. “I guess somebody from the Confederacy—that time-path, say—started to explore what must have seemed a damned strange happening. And these Romans—if they’re Romans—jumped them.”

  Something came shambling through the darkness. Minott threw the flash-beam upon it. It was human, yes. But it was three parts naked, and it was chained, and it had been beaten horribly, and there were great sores upon its body from other beatings. It was bony and emaciated. The insensate ferocity of sheer despair marked it. It was brutalized by its sufferings until it was just human, barely human, and nothing more.

  It squinted at the light, too dull of comprehension to be afraid.

  Then Minott spoke, and at his words it automatically groveled in the dirt. Minott spoke harshly, in half-forgotten Latin, and the groveling figure mumbled words which had been barbarous Latin to begin with, and through its bruised lips were still further mutilated.

  “It’s a slave,” said Minott coldly. “Strange men—

  Confederates, I suppose—came from the north today. They fought and killed some of the guards at this estate. This slave denies it, but Imagine he was heading north in hopes of escaping to them. When you think of it, I suppose we’re not the only explorers to be caught out of our own time-path by some shift or another.”

  He growled at the slave and rode on, still headed for the distant light.

  “What—what are you going to do?” asked Maida faintly.

  “Go on to the villa yonder and ask questions,” said Minott dryly. “If Confederates hold it, we’ll be well received. If they don’t, we’ll still manage to earn a welcome. I intend to camp along a time-fault and cross over whenever a time-shift brings a Norse settlement in sight. Consequently, I want exact news of places where they’ve been seen, if such news is to be had.”

  Maida Haynes pressed close to Blake. He put a reassuring hand on her arm as the horses trudged on over the soft ground. The fire-light behind them grew brighter. Occasional resinous, coniferous trees flared upward and threw fugitive red glows upon the riding figures. But gradually the glare grew steadier and stronger. The white walls of a rambling stucco house became visible. Out-buildings. Barns. A monstrous structure which looked startlingly like a barracks.

  It was a farm, an estate, a Roman villa transplanted to the very edge of a wilderness. It was—Blake remembered vaguely—like a picture he had once seen of a Roman villa in England, restored to look as it had looked before Rome withdrew her legions from Britain and left the island to savagery and darkness. There were small mounds of curing hay about them, through which the horses picked their way. Blake suddenly wrinkled his nostrils suspiciously. He sniffed. . . .

  Maida pressed close to him. Her lips formed words. Lucy Blair rode close to Minott, glancing up at him from time to time. Harris rode apologetically beside Bertha Ketterline, and Bertha sat her horse as if she were saddle-sore. Tom Hunter clung close to Minott as if for protection, leaving Janet Thompson to look out for herself.

  “J-jerry,” said Maida. “What—what do you think?”

  “I don’t like it,” admitted Blake in a low tone. “But we’ve got to tag along. I think I smell—”

  Then a sudden swarm of figures leaped at the horses. Wild figures, naked figures, sweaty and reeking and almost maniacal figures, some of whom clanked chains as they leaped. A voice bellowed orders at them from a distance, and a whip cracked ominously.

  Before the struggle ended, there were just two shots fired. Minott fired them both and wheeled about. . . . Then a horse streaked away, and Bertha Ketterline was bawling plaintively, and Tom Hunter babbled hysterically, and Harris swore with a complete lack of his customary air of apology.

  Blake seemed to be buried under a mass of foul bodies like the rest, but he rasped at his captors in an authoritative tone. They fell away from him, cringing as if by instinct. And then torches appeared suddenly and slaves appeared in their light, slaves of every possible degree of filth and degradation, of every possible racial mixture, but unanimous in a desperate abjectness before their master amid the torch-bearers.

  He was a short, fat man, in an only slightly modified toga. He drew it close about his body as the torch-bearers held their flares close to the captives. The torchlight showed the captives, to be sure, but also it showed the puffy, self-indulgent and invincibly cruel features of the man who owned these slaves and the villa. By his pose and the orders he gave in a curiously corrupt Latin, he showed that he considered he owned the captives too.

  The deputy from Aisne-le-Sur decided that it had been very wise indeed for him to walk in the fresh air. Paris at night is stimulating. That curious attack of vertigo had come of too much champagne. The fresh air had dispelled the fumes. But it was odd that he did not know exactly where he was, though he knew his Paris well. These streets were strange. The houses were unlike any that he remembered ever having seen before. In the light of the street-lamps—and they were unusual, too!—there was a certain unfamiliar quality about their architecture. He puzzled over it, trying to identify the peculiar flair these houses showed.

  He became impatient. After all, it was necessary for him to return home some time, even though his wife . . . The deputy from Aisne-le-Sur shrugged. Then he saw bright lights ahead. He hastened his steps. A magnificent mansion, brilliantly illuminated.

  The clattering of many hoofs. A cavalry escort, forming up before the house. A pale young man emerged, escorted by a tall, fat man who kissed his hand as if in an ecstasy of admiration. Dismounted cavalrymen formed a lane from the gateway to the car. Two young officers followed the pale young man. They were ablaze with decorations. The deputy from Aisne-le-Sur noted subconsciously that he did not recognize their uniforms. The car-door was open and waiting. There was some oddity about the car, but the deputy could not see clearly just what it was.

  There was much clicking of heels. Steel blades at salute. The pale young m
an patiently allowed the fat man to kiss his hand again. He entered the car. The two bemedaled young officers climbed in after him. The car rolled away. Instantly, the cavalry escort clattered with it, before it, behind it, all around it. . . .

  The fat man stood on the sidewalk, beaming and rubbing his hands together. The dismounted cavalrymen swung to their saddles and trotted briskly after the others.

  The deputy from Aisne-le-Sur stared blankly. He saw another pedestrian, halted like himself to regard the spectacle. He was disturbed by the fact that this pedestrian was clothed in a fashion as perturbingly unfamiliar as these houses, and the spectacle he had witnessed.

  “Pardon, visieur,” said the deputy from Aisne-le-Sur. “I do not recognize my surroundings. Would you tell me—”

  “The house,” said the other, caustically, “is the hotel of M. le Duc de Montigny. Is it possible that one does not know of M. le Duc? Or more especially of Madame la Duchesse, and what she is and where she lives?”

  The deputy from Aisne-le-Sur blinked.

  “Montigny?—Montigny? No,” he confessed. “And the young man of the car, whose hand was kissed by—”

  “Kissed by M. le Duc?” The stranger stared frankly. “Mon dieu! Where have you come from that you do not recognize Louis the Twentieth? He has but departed from a visit to Madame his mistress.”

  “Louis—Louis the Twentieth!” stammered the deputy from Aisne-le-Sur. “I—I do not understand!”

  “Fool!” said the stranger impatiently, “that was the King of France, who succeeded his father as a child of ten and has been free of the regency for but six months —and already ruins France!”

  The long-distance operator plugged in with a shaking hand. “Number please . . . I am sorry, sir, but we are unable to connect you with Camden. . . . The lines are down. ... I am sorry, sir, but we are unable to connect you with Jenkinstown. The lines are down. . . . Very sorry, sir.”

  Another call buzzed and lighted up.

  “Hello . . . 1 am sorry, sir. We are unable to connect you with Dover. The lines are down. . . .” Her hands worked automatically. “Hello ... I am sorry, but we are unable to connect you with New York. The lines are down. . . . No, sir. We cannot route it by Atlantic City. The lines are down. . . . Yes, sir, I know the telegraph companies cannot guarantee delivery. . . . No, sir, we cannot reach Pittsburgh, either, to get a message through. . . .” Her voice quivered. “No, sir, the lines are down to Scranton. . . . And Harrisburg too.

  Yes, sir.... I am sorry, but we cannot get a message of any sort out of Philadelphia in any direction. . . . We have tried to arrange communication by radio, but no calls are answered. . .

  She covered her face with her hands for an instant. Then she plugged in and made a call herself.

  “Minnie! Haven t they heard anything1 ... Not anything? . . . What? They phoned for more police? . . . The—the operator out there says there s fighting? . . . She hears a lot of shooting? . . . What is it, Minnie? Don’t they even know? . . . They—they’re using the armored cars from the banks to fight with, too! . . . But what are they fighting? What? . . . My folks are out there, Minnie! My folks are out there!”

  The doorway of the slave-barracks closed and great bars slammed against its outer side. Reeking, foul, un-breathable air closed about them like a wave. Then a babbling of voices all about. The clanking of chains. The rustling of straw, as if animals moved. Someone screeched; howled above the others. He began to gain the ascendancy. There was almost some attention paid to him, though a minor babbling continued all about.

  Maida said in a strained voice:

  “I—I can catch a word here and there. He’s—telling these other slaves how we were captured. It’s—Latin— of sorts.”

  Bertha Ketterline squalled suddenly, in the absolute dark.

  “Somebody touched me!” she bawled. “A man!”

  A voice spoke humorously, somewhere near. There was laughter. It was the howled laughter of animals.

  Slaves were animals, according to the Roman notion. A rustling noise, as if in the noisome freedom of their barracks the utterly brutalized slaves drew nearer to the newcomers. There could be sport with new-captured folk, not yet degraded to their final status.

  Lucy Blair cried out in a stifled fashion. There was a sharp, incisive “crack” Somebody fell. More laughter.

  “I knocked him out!” snapped Blake. ‘‘Harris! Hunter! Feel around for something we can use as clubs! These slaves intend to haze us, and in their own den there’s no attempt to control them! Even if they kill us they’ll only be whipped for it. And the girls—”

  Something, snarling, leaped for him in the darkness. The authoritative tone of Blake’s voice was hateful. A yapping sound arose. Other figures closed in. Reduced to the status of animals, the slaves of the Romans behaved as beasts when locked in their monster kennel. The newcomers were hateful if only because they had been freemen, not slaves. The women were clean and they were frightened—and they were prey. Chains clanked ominously. Foul breaths tainted the air. The reek of utter depravity, of human beings brought lower than beasts—who at least do not foul their own dens—filled the air. It was utterly dark.

  Bertha Ketterline began to blubber noisily. There was the sudden savage sound of a blow meeting flesh. Then pandemonium, and battle, and the sudden terrified screams of Lucy Blair. . . . The panting of men who fought. The sound of blows. A man howled. Another shrieked curses. A women screamed shrilly. . . .

  “Bang! Bang! Bang-bang!” Shots outside, a veritable fusillade of them. Running feet. Shouts. The bars at the doorway fell. The great doors opened, and men stood in the opening with whips and torches, bellowing for the slaves to come out and attack something yet unknown. They were being called from their kennel like dogs. Four of the whip-men came inside, flogging the slaves out, while the sound of shots continued. The slaves shrank away, or bounded howling for the open air. But there were three of them who would never shrink or cringe again.

  Blake and Harris stood embattled in a corner of the slave-shed. Blake held a heavy beam in a desperate readiness for further battle. Harris, likewise, held a clumsy club. With torch-light upon him, his air of savage defiance turned to one of quaint apology for the dead slave at his feet. And Hunter and two of the girls competed in stark panic for a position behind him. Lucy Blair, dead-white, stood backed against a wall, a jagged fragment of gnawed bone held daggerwise.

  The whips lashed out at them. Voices snarled at them. The whips again . . . Blake struck out furiously, a huge welt across his face. . . .

  And revolvers cracked at the great door. Minott stood there, a revolver in each hand, his eyes blazing. A torch-bearer dropped, and the torches flared smokily in the foul mud of the flooring.

  “All right,” said Minott fiercely. “Come on out!”

  Hunter was the first to reach him, babbling and gasping. There was sheer uproar all about. A huge grain-shed roared upward in flames. Figures rushed crazily all about it. From the flames came another explosion, then two, then three more.

  “Horses over here by the stables,” said Minott, his face dead-white and very deadly indeed. “They haven’t unsaddled them. The stable-slaves haven’t figured out the cinches yet. I put some revolver-bullets in the straw when I set fire to that grain-shed. They’re going off from time to time.”

  A figure with whip and dagger raced around an out-building and confronted them. Minott shot him down. Blake said hoarsely:

  “Give me a revolver, Minott! I want to—”

  “Horses first!” snapped Minott.

  They raced into a courtyard. Two shots. The slaves fled, howling. Out of the courtyard, bent low in the saddle. They swept close to the villa itself. On a little raised terrace before it raged a stout man in an only slightly modified toga. A slave groveled before him. He kicked the abject figure and strode out, shouting commands in a voice that cracked with his fury. The horses loomed up and he shook his fists at the riders, purple with wrath, incapable of fear because of his b
eastly rage.

  Minott shot him dead, swung off his horse, and stripped the toga from him. He flung it to Lucy.

  “Take this!” he said savagely. “By God, I could kill. . .”

  There was now no question of his leadership. He led the retreat from the villa. The eight horses headed north again, straight for the luridly flaming forest.

  They stopped once more. Behind them, another building of the estate had caught from the first. Sheer confusion ruled. The slaughter of the master disrupted all organization. The roof of the slave-barracks caught. Screams and howls of pure panic reached even the fugitives. Then there were racing, maddened figures rushing here and there in the glare of the fires. . . . Suddenly there was fighting. A howling ululation arose. .. .

  Minott worked savagely, stripping clothing from the bodies slain in that incredible, unrecorded conflict of Confederate soldiers and Roman troops, in some un-guessable pathway of space and time. Blake watched behind, but Minott curtly commanded the salvaging of rifles and ammunition from the dead Confederates—if they were Confederates.

  And as Hunter, still gasping hysterically, took the load of yet unfamiliar weapons upon his horse, the eight felt a certain incredible, intolerable vertigo and nausea. The burning forest ahead vanished from their sight. Instead, there was darkness. A noisome smell came down-wind; dampness and strange, overpowering perfumes of monstrous colored flowers. . . . Something huge and deadly bellowed, in the space before them which smelled like a monstrous swamp.

  The liner City of Baltimore ploughed through the open sea in the first pale light of dawn. The skipper, up on the bridge, wore a worried frown. The radio operator came up. He carried a sheaf of radiogram forms. His eyes were blurry with loss of sleep.

  “Maybe it was me, sir,” he reported heavily. “I felt awful funny for a while last night, an' then all night long I couldn’t raise a station. I checked everything an’ couldn’t find anything wrong. But just now I felt awful sick an’ funny for a minute, an’ when I come out of it the air was full o’ code. Here’s some of it. I don’t understand how I coulda been sick so I couldn’t hear code, sir, but—”