Dimension A

by L. P. Davies

  “Used when they’re building houses?” Lee rested his arms on a flat piece of rock. “No—not that shape. Could be some kind of look-out post, but it isn’t, not stuck down there in a hollow. Shall we?”

  We skated down loose scree and walked across to the primitive construction. It reminded me of something, incongruous though the notion was.

  “Wembley,” I said. “For leading the crowd in community singing on cup final day.”

  He grinned. “A far cry from Wembley Stadium. But I see the resemblance. Shall we try six verses of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’?” He set his foot on one of the ladders and the contraption rocked alarmingly.

  He stepped back.

  “Whoever threw it together didn’t make a very good job of it. You’ve only got to touch it—” Then he discovered why it was so unstable. “Two of the legs are at least a foot shorter than the others.” He rubbed his jaw. “Why, for Pete’s sake?”

  “They’re fond of building things on a slope,” I said. “Like the walls of their houses.”

  “We’re only assuming our fur-clad friends built this. I suppose they did … And after seeing their heat-ray in action I’ve changed my mind about their capabilities. If they’re clever enough to invent a weapon like that, then I’m damned sure they’re not stupid enough to build houses with sloping walls or a one-sided affair like this without good reason.”

  We climbed back out of the hollow and continued on our way to no place in particular, our prime concern for the time being to get away from the mist. Several dozen paces brought us to a bend in the path. In the lead, I rounded the corner warily. It was well I did. Another large hollow contained a score or more of the fur-clad men. Crouching, we peered down at them.

  Four squatted on their haunches at the entrance to a cave. On the dusty ground at their side was a large neatly-stacked pile of the larger heat-ray tubes. Alongside was another pile, this one made up of the accompanying animal-skin bags which we knew from the past must contain the glass sections of the weapons—presumably lenses and mirrors.

  The remainder of the men were dotted about the lower slopes of the surrounding hills—some walking slowly, others standing still, all armed with the dart-guns.

  “Settlement of cave dwellers?”—Lee hazarded softly. “I shouldn’t think so. No women for one thing. Hunting party? Not with that collection of heavy armament. Search party?”

  And at first that seemed the reasonable answer. They had been sent out after us but decided to rest. They stacked the heavy stuff and then, perhaps with some of their number out scouting, were taking things easy for a while.

  But whatever the reason for their presence here, there was no going through them or round them. We moved carefully back, turned, and retraced our steps along the rim of the first hollow, striking away at an angle when we came to a break in the rock.

  And now the terrain seemed to be even more rugged. With no path, it was a case of following the line of least resistance, skirting the unscalable rocks, climbing the smaller. The food we had eaten earlier kept hunger more or less at bay, but thirst had long ago started to make itself felt. As the red haze in the sky slowly cleared, the sun blazed down more fiercely than ever. We stopped after a harder climb than usual and, hugging the meagre shade of a low escarpment, rested and looked about us. There seemed no break in the lunar landscape of red rock. In all directions it reached away to be lost in the shimmering heat haze.

  It is impossible to say how long we struggled on before coming upon a change of scenery. I would guess that the best part of two hours had passed from the time of our leaving the twin hollows to the moment when, only able to move slowly now, we emerged from a narrow ravine to find a well-defined path in front of us. With relief we turned to follow it, hoping the path would lead to water. It climbed a smooth-topped hill, was lost on the summit, reappeared as a brown ribbon across the unhappy green of a stretch of grass, swung away, dipped into an unexpected hollow and vanished into a thicket of palms.

  There was great relief in the shade of the entwined leaves overhead, even with the return to the inevitable back-bent progress. We paused to rest and, resting, heard in the silence the soft rustle of water. We easily traced it to its source. And this was a larger stream than the other we had made use of, wider, spanned by a crude wooden bridge.

  This time, parched though we were, we approached with caution. And we took turns to drink and bathe our faces, Lee keeping watch while I made the most of the ice-cold water, I later doing the same for him. Then for a while we sat in the shade of a group of trees.

  And we came round to talking about the hallucination—for that is what it must have been, an artificially induced hallucination—that had caused us to relive the transition from our world to this dimension. Thinking about it, brooding upon it in a desultory fashion as we struggled along under the sun, I had come up with a possible explanation. One that tied in with my private assessment of the nature of the invisible beings who lived behind the mist.

  “Curiosity,” I said. “That seems to be behind everything they do. When we first came they gathered us in to try to find out what sort of beings we were. And then they wanted to find out where we came from and how we got here.”

  “A hell of a way to go about picking one’s brain,” Lee said resentfully. “Making us live through that a second time. Why the blazes don’t they just come out into the open and ask?”

  “Perhaps they can’t.” I pulled up my trouser leg to inspect a bruised knee. “We think of living things in terms of our own world. People, animals, plants. It could be the things that live inside the mist are a different form of life altogether, something beyond even our imagination.”

  “I had an idea they might be invisible,” he said as I pulled the trouser leg down again. “I’m sure they can’t be, though. Look at it this way. They can read thoughts. That means they have brains. Brains have to have containers. That means they have bodies. It stands to reason.”

  Reason … What use was reason here? It could only be applied to abstract things—motives. And even then it was wild guesswork. The only thing I could be sure about was that they were curious about us. And that, after all, was common sense, not reason.

  Pushing myself upright I looked at the sky, shielding my eyes against the sun’s glare. The molten blinding disc was well to one side now. If there was any parallel between time here and that in our world, then I guessed it must be about four o’clock. I offered the estimate to Lee for something new to say, something to change a topic that could lead to useless discussion and even argument. I had read somewhere that heat can make people touchy and short-tempered. I could well believe it now.

  “Four o’clock,” he echoed dismally. “Tea-time. Maybe where we’re standing now there’s a lawn all set out with tables and chairs and the Sunday-best crockery, with the vicar doing his stuff and handing round the muffins. God …”

  “Time we were on the move again,” I said.

  He didn’t ask where we intended moving to. Deep in thought—perhaps brooding on the tea-party he had dreamed up—he followed as I crossed the bridge. I went even more cautiously now, assuming that a well-used path and a bridge indicated a settlement nearby.

  And a settlement meant food. In my mind I was formulating a plan of sorts. Ever since we had been in this place we had been badgered from pillar to post without a chance to set about doing anything constructive. We seemed to have spent the greater part of our time on the run. It was high time we got ourselves organised. I shelved the telling of my plan for the time being because it would certainly give rise to discussion. And right now it was best we keep as quiet as possible.

  I was right in my assumption that we were close to a village. We weaved our way between more palms, negotiated a narrow ravine, and came out on a narrow ledge. The ledge overlooked a saucer-shaped hollow containing a settlement that was almost a duplicate of the one where we had been held prisoners. It was so alike that at first I thought it was our original village, that we had simp
ly approached it from another direction. But as we edged down the slope—any amount of cover in the shape of trees and rock outcroppings—it became obvious that this was a different, much larger settlement.

  “A veritable city,” Lee said in the pause, before moving to the next cover.

  We had seen from the ledge only a few of the outlying houses. In all, there must have been well over a hundred, all identical in appearance. The stream snaked between them to end at a small central lake. There was little sign of the occupants of the houses. Figures moved about, but there were no groups. A few children played at the water’s edge. A solitary woman, crouched in the shadow of one of the houses, pounded with stone pestle in stone mortar. Smoke trailed unwaveringly into the sky from a fire that was out of sight.

  Lee and I changed position, moving to where a patch of grass provided a reasonably comfortable resting place and where two palms and a pile of rock gave both shade and cover. Lying fiat on our stomachs we contemplated the village.

  It was time to unfold my plan. If we kept our voices down we would be safe enough. Rolling over so that I could keep an eye on our rear, I started by pointing out that we had achieved very little since our arrival in this dimension.

  “I wouldn’t exactly say that,” Lee grunted. “We’ve learned quite a lot, one way and another.”

  “But what we’ve learned is no use to us, not the way we are. The whole idea of finding the way into this dimension was so that we could rescue your uncle and his assistant.”

  “You don’t have to remind me of that.”

  “But we came through unprepared.”

  “Nor that.” He squinted sideways at me. “What’s this leading to?”

  I told him, speaking quickly, allowing no space for interruption.

  “We can’t do anything like this. We’ve got to go back and start all over again. First we get food and water. The village here should be able to provide both, and something to carry the water in. Then we make our way back to the hill and wait for the door to open. We find somewhere to hide, out of the sun, away from the mist and out of sight of the men there. When the door opens, as it’s bound to sooner or later, we go through. And then we come back again, only this time properly organised and equipped, maybe with help—Mr. Leming, perhaps. With suitable clothing, supplies, even guns if we can get hold of them. Then we’ll stand a good chance of finding Professor Maver.”

  I had expected objections, strong ones, that would lead to argument. It wasn’t like that at all. Leo seized upon one of my suggestions.

  “Guns. Yes. Shotguns. I know a farmer who’d lend us a couple of those and cartridges, without asking questions. That would shake those boys with their heat-rays.”

  He was clearly much enamoured of the notion. He spent a few moments in reflection, almost certainly visualising shotguns in action against heat-rays and poison darts.

  Then: “Yes, Gerald. Like you say, we’re helpless the way we are. Common sense instead of heroics is the thing. All right. Something to carry water … I don’t fancy mountain climbing hampered with glass ewers.”

  “Water isn’t piped into the houses. They must have some way of bringing it from the streams. They’re bound to have something apart from the jugs.”

  “A touch of Sherlock Holmes.” He grinned. “Fair enough. So, suitably fitted out, we find our way back to the hill. And with a bit of luck the door appears. Suspended—what?—four or five feet in mid-air? Do we fly through?”

  “It didn’t take long to build the cairn. We’ve got a fairly good idea where the door must be. So we build another cairn, only much larger.”

  “And hope it’s in the right place.”

  In the circular valley two more trails of smoke had come to join the first. Evening meals being prepared, I thought. A party of fur-clad men were making their way towards the houses, coming down the slopes at the far side of the settlement. There were perhaps a score of them and they all had leathery-looking bags, heavy by the way they were being carried.

  “Getting food and something to carry water in will be the trickiest part,” I said. “We’ll have to wait for darkness.”

  “When they’re all tucked up in bed.” Lee looked up at the sky. “And when is that likely to be? How long are the days in this place?”

  “By the rate the sun is moving “I’m guessing they’re about the same duration as ours.”

  The laden men had reached the village and were dispersing. Some women had appeared, going to join the children who played at the lake side. Two men walked together on the outskirts of a cluster of houses, one much taller than the other—a head taller, and with something peculiar about his clothing. I shielded my eyes against the slanting sun. The two had stopped at the door of one of the houses, the taller turning in our direction as he reached to open the door. Then I saw what was strange about his clothing. He was wearing an ordinary jacket and trousers.

  And Lee exclaimed excitedly, “Uncle John!” On his knees, then on his feet, Lee would, I think, have gone pelting down the slope there and then if I hadn’t managed just in time to tackle him round the waist and drag him back down behind the rocks.

  He struggled. Then relaxed. I took my hands away.

  “It won’t do any good dashing down there like that,” I said. “He doesn’t look as if he is being kept prisoner, but we can’t tell for sure. And if they capture us again, we won’t be able to help him.”

  He took a deep breath. “I didn’t give myself time to think. Maybe I would when it was too late. I saw him there, and that was that… Sorry, Gerald.”

  He wriggled back to his viewing position, and I joined him. There was no sign of the Professor; I assumed he had gone into the house. His former companion was making his way back to the centre of the village. One thing was in our favour if we intended a rescue operation. The Professor’s prison, if that was what it was, stood alone on the fringe of the place. And there was no guard on duty outside. I leaned forward to inspect the general lay of the land. It seemed to me that there was sufficient cover for us to make our way along the slopes that enclosed the valley and safely reach a point immediately behind a thicket of palms. We could snake our way down to those and then make a quick dash to the isolated house. Two hazards: we might be spotted during the manoeuvre, and the Professor might not be alone.

  Lee had guessed what I had in mind. “What do you think?” he asked anxiously. “Now—or when it’s dark?”

  “I think we can risk it now.”

  He must have been following the directions of my eyes. “Along the slope, down to the trees, then to the house?”

  “That’s it.” I offered the snags.

  “We should be hidden from the rest of the houses,” he said. “And I think he’ll be on his own. He didn’t look like a prisoner to me. I mean, that bloke with him wasn’t armed. They looked like two friends out for an evening stroll before turning in for the night.”

  We made our way along the slope, slipping from cover to cover. The going was easier than I had envisaged. We waited a few moments before making the little dash down to the palms. We waited again before the final race to the shadow at the rear of the house.

  Lee, his back against the wall in approved fashion, inched along to the corner, peered round, nodded to me to follow and then moved on. The area in front of the house was deserted. There was no one to see our final dash to the door. Lee opened it and I followed him quickly inside.

  The room was a duplicate of the one we had earlier escaped from. The man who sat on the chair looked up at our entrance, startled, mouth gaping. There was an odd little hiatus. Then he came to his feet.

  “Dr. Livingstone, I presume,” Lee said with a deplorable lack of originality, going to meet him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  My first impression of Professor Maver turned out to be a false one. But there was excuse enough for my wrong assessment. By his appearance, by his clothes in particular, I judged him to be a man of careless and untidy habits who gave little or no thought to his p
erson. The typical absent-minded professor of fiction.

  The threadbare tweed jacket that hung loosely from his lanky shoulders would have been more fitting on the wooden frame of a scarecrow. All the buttons were missing. The jacket was tied about the waist with cord. There were long, lining-exposing rents, one pocket flapped from its moorings, and one lapel had become almost completely detached. His flannels were in no better shape; a boney knee poked through the gaping hole in one leg. As far as I could see he wore nothing beneath the jacket. Certainly, his feet were bare.

  His clothes, I felt sure, could never have gotten into such a state in the short time he had been in this place, even if he had suffered the roughest of rough passages out there in the hills. And neither could his thick, greying hair have grown to such a length, curling on his shoulders, in six short weeks. So here, I told myself, was a man slovenly about appearance. And how wrong I was. I was later to find that he was the very reverse of all this and that under normal circumstances he was always most fastidious about his appearance.