Dimension A

by L. P. Davies

  The distance, the dim light, and the drifting tendrils of grey mist made it impossible to see them clearly. Like their homes, they seemed to be suspended above the ground. They were the size and shape of men, and they seemed to be watching us, for I had the impression of faces turned in our direction. I think there were seven of them, but even that was hard to tell. We would have to go much, much closer before we could hope to get any idea of what they really looked like. And I, for one, felt very reluctant to take even one step nearer.

  There was no hesitation on Adam’s part. I felt I could read his thoughts—as undoubtedly the Vorteds had already done—and so know what was in his mind. He had collected his courage to make the journey to this frightening place for the main purpose of proposing an alliance with its inhabitants. He had come so far, and there they were, waiting for him.

  He strode unhesitatingly towards them, throwing off Maver’s restraining hand, ignoring his cry of warning. He walked along the path that led straight to the collection of strange houses. His shape dwindled as he narrowed the distance between himself and the waiting Vorteds.

  And I knew, I could feel, that something was very wrong.

  Adam had almost reached them when the transformation came. The trees, the houses, and the weird white shapes suddenly collapsed, dissolving, melting into the ground. The curtain of mist was swept away, revealing a vast, smooth-topped brown mound of what was most certainly the same rubbery pulsating substance of which the streams were composed. And from the base of that awesome mound a brown sea lapped out, reaching towards Adam’s feet, engulfing them. We saw him struggle to free himself. And then we heard him scream.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I had never before heard a man scream in agony. I think I found the sound more shocking than the sight of his struggle. For an instant we were all stunned into immobility. That the trapped man was an enemy made no difference. He was a human being—a man like any other in appearance—and he was in the grip of something horrifyingly alien and unnatural. The smell was indescribably evil, almost overpowering. And, even worse, a hideous hissing, churning sound came from that mass of pulsating, heaving matter.

  The shock passed and I leaped forward automatically, aware of movements at my side that were Lee and his uncle doing the same. The matter lapped about Adam’s feet and seemed to be climbing his ankles. He screamed again, terribly, struggling desperately to free himself. Fighting revulsion and fear, I stood on the fringe of that brown tide, reaching out my hand. He grasped it with the fury of a drowning man clutching a straw. For a terrifying moment I swayed, almost losing my balance, almost being pulled forward to go sprawling face down into the stuff. Then Lee’s arm came to clamp round my waist, steadying me, then pulling me back. One of Adam’s feet came free with a glutinous sucking sound. Despite Lee’s help I fell to my knees, Adam’s hand still grasping mine, the two only inches above that throbbing surface. And then, unexpectedly, miraculously, the living tide parted, drawing back, leaving Adam’s other foot free. The sudden relief of tension sent me rolling over backwards, Adam flying after me head first.

  Lee dragged him away while I was pulling myself together and regaining my feet. Adam had lost consciousness. I helped Lee by taking hold of Adam’s feet. Urged on by the Professor, guided by him, we carried the unconscious man away from the mound, stumbling on ground that had suddenly become unstable, that gave beneath our feet. We carried our burden to the flat-topped island of rock, dragged him up onto the top and there laid him down. Panting, I looked back to find that the mist had dropped again, hiding the monstrous mound from view. But I could still hear the churning sound; its stench still filled my nostrils.

  Maver was stooping over Adam’s feet. The sandals had gone completely, and the fur gaiters hung in shreds. The exposed flesh was seared and brilliant scarlet, the skin broken in parts, blood seeping and trickling.

  Maver touched that inflamed, partly decomposed flesh and then straightened slowly, turning to look in the direction of the now shrouded mound. He nodded almost with satisfaction, as if confirming some private theory.

  Taking off his shirt, Lee knelt at the unconscious man’s side, ripping the cloth, making rough bandages to bind about the mutilated feet. I went to help. He looked up wonderingly at his uncle.

  “Acid,” he said. “That’s what it looks like. For all the world as if acid had been spilled over his feet.”

  And the Professor nodded. “Yes, Lee. That is what it is. Hydrochloric acid. Or its equivalent. But much more potent. Digestive fluid.”

  Lee paused in his bandaging to wonder anew. “Digestive fluid?”

  “You are going to find this hard to believe.” The other pointed at Adam’s feet. “That is what happens to food in your stomach. Or rather, the start of the process. The process of digestion. How can I explain it to you? I have had the idea at the back of my mind ever since we entered this place. What I have seen since confirms my belief. Now I am sure. The dwellings we saw, the beings, even the path we came by, were not real, not part of the true things of this place.”

  That was obvious. “Like our glades and woods,” I said.

  “Like those, Morton. But they were not hallucinations. They were composed of solid matter, the matter of this place which had become temporarily modified so that it assumed other shapes and forms. As a chameleon changes its colour to blend with its surroundings.

  “Adam had his own mental picture of what he thought a Vorted village and its occupants might look like. This place simply took the picture from his mind and used its substance to create such a village as the final bait in the trap.”

  I think I had a glimmering then of what he was going to tell us.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “It is difficult to find words for something that is so alien to our way of thinking. We cannot rightly call it a ‘place.’ A being? No.” He shook his head. “Something for which we do have a word, but that word is inadequate for what it has to describe here. All this, everything you see about you, everything that is enclosed within the force field which is not, after all, a force field at all, is one thing—a Vorted, for want of a better term. One Vorted.”

  He paused while he collected words, moving to stand on the edge of our island.

  “Long ago, when the whirling, suspended particles of matter became changed, coming together again, finally to settle, instead of forming many creatures as I had first suspected, they formed only the one, small at first, now grown to this gigantic size. And still growing. It is a thing that is part mineral, part plant, part animal. And it is one single gigantic cell.

  “Its composition is a duplicate of a simple plant cell as seen under the microscope. The mist which encloses it—overhead as well as about its circumference —is the outer covering, the skin, the equivalent of the cellulose walls of a plant cell. This unstable black substance which has all the appearance of soil is the cytoplasm, made up of waste matter and stored food—metaplasm. The pools are the spaces in the cytoplasm —the vacuoles. And that, of course—” He pointed in the direction of the invisible mound.

  “The nucleus,” I said tonelessly.

  “One may indeed regard it as such,” he agreed. “But because of the animal element, a much more complex affair. It will contain the brain, the heart, the nerve centre. It is also the stomach, for it is obvious from what we just witnessed that food is trapped there, absorbed and digested, and then certainly transmitted to all parts of the cell by means of the streams. And they are simply extensions of the stomach.”

  Lee had finished his bandaging and was crouching back on his heels, over the shock of the Professor’s pronouncement, staring about him with mingled amazement and disbelief.

  “All this is just the one thing?” And: “Five miles or more across?” And something that was even more incredible, and frightening: “We’re actually inside it?”

  Maver smiled faintly at his tone.

  “I can well understand your disbelief. But that is the way of it, Lee. We
could be compared with virus in a bloodstream. Or, more appropriately”—his voice was dryness itself—“with food that has been swallowed but has yet to reach the digestive organs.”

  Lee scrambled to his feet.

  “For God’s sake!” he cried. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

  “My sentiments entirely,” Maver said, still in that dry tone. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure. I have seen all I want to see. But”—going to stand at Adam’s side—“we have a responsibility. We know what the ground will be like to walk on. It would be impossible to carry him for any distance. We will have to wait until he regains consciousness. Let us hope he will be able to walk. In the meantime we seem reasonably secure on this rock. How long that security will last I have no idea. One has the impression that our friend is mulling over the problem of what to do with us.”

  I looked about me. The drifting grey mist seemed to have thickened. There was no sign now of the path by which we had come. But I had expected that. The Vorted had made it to bring us here; it would certainly not let it remain as a means of return.

  But something was puzzling me—had been nagging at my thoughts for some time. The mound, the nucleus, had actually trapped a victim, and then let him go again. We hadn’t pulled Adam free; the brown matter had withdrawn of its own accord. And that didn’t make sense.

  I couldn’t think of any explanation, but I didn’t feel like putting the problem to the Professor. Not right now, not while we had the more important problem—of how to get out of this … this thing— to solve.

  Five miles in diameter, and we were at the very heart. Well over two miles to travel, on ground that would give at every step, with an injured man on our hands—assuming he did regain consciousness— and at the end, with no way of telling if the mist would allow us to pass through.

  Hands on hips, Lee looked down at Adam’s bandaged feet.

  “The best I could do,” he said. “At least the soles weren’t too badly”—he faltered over the word—“digested. The thick sandals must have protected them. All the same, he won’t be in fit state to do much walking.” He gazed around. “Nothing we can use to make a litter.” He stamped on the rock. “Solid enough, thank God. Like Gibraltar. But why? I mean, why doesn’t this blasted Vorted try dislodging us?”

  The Professor rubbed his jaw.

  “That is only one of the things I find confusing, Lee. Our rock is part of the mineral content or the cell. As such, one would think the Vorted would cause it to change, so that it would no longer protect us. For some reason the cell seems wary of us, making no further attempt to entice or force us to its stomach.”

  I went to stand by Adam, looking down at him. The sulphurous light glinted dully on the tawdry glass on breast and shoulders. His hat—I felt it must be precious to him—had been lost in his struggle with the brown tide. At that moment I felt sorry for this pathetic little man who had set himself up as a petty dictator. God knows, no matter how evil his intent, he didn’t deserve to suffer in this way. When all was said and done, we were really to blame; it was during his stay in our world that he had learned about such things. But that didn’t alter the matter. He was still our enemy.

  Beyond him, a cluster of white-stemmed leafless plants grew above the rim of our plateau. Looking at them—wondering absently if they were poisonous —I remembered the way the branch had behaved in the glade. On an impulse I picked up a strip of cloth left over from Lee’s ministrations and wrapped it about my hands. Thus protected to some extent I reached out to grasp one of the stems. As my fingers neared it, so it swayed back out of reach. I tried again, with the same result. A movement at my side was Lee, his face curious. In silence I unwound the cloth and handed it to him. In silence he wrapped it about his hand and then reached out as I had done. And the plant stayed still, letting him grasp it. He snapped off two of the stems and let them fall along with the cloth to the rock.

  “Like before,” he said. “Damn it, Gerald, there’s got to be some reason—”

  And then Adam stirred and opened his eyes.

  I kicked the stems over the edge of the plateau. Like before. Yes. And other things: the way that brown sea had moved away from my hand. But only when my hand had come close to it. There had to be something about me that was different. For some reason I had repelled a branch, the brown tide, now the plants. I lifted my hand, staring at it, puzzling over its ordinary appearance.

  And then, you know, realisation came. It was incredible, simple, but it was logical. It made sense. But before I finally accepted the explanation there was one final experiment I must make. That would have to wait.

  Adam, helped by Lee and Maver, had managed to get to his feet. I went to lend my assistance. The Toparian, eyes glazed, looked down at his feet. He shuddered as memory returned, looking in the direction of the mist-shrouded mound. The hissing, churning sound was more than enough to make memory hideously complete. He shuddered again, violently, taking a stumbling step backwards.

  Maver took hold of his shoulder, steadying him, asking: “How do you feel?” And: “Do you think you will be able to walk?”

  The other shook himself free of the steadying hand with an impatient, almost angry movement, and tried a few steps.

  “I can walk,” he said through tight lips, and that was all—no gratitude offered, no word, no look even for Lee and me. And no questions addressed to the Professor.

  “At least the going will be soft enough,” Lee said wryly. “Too soft, I’m thinking. You’ll have noticed our path has done a vanishing act. Looks like we’ve a long cake-walk in front of us. I remember going on one of those in a fun fair when I was a kid. The same sort of feeling …”

  “We must avoid the pools,” Maver said. “They are an unknown quantity. So are the various specimens of growing things. And, of course, the nuclear extensions … The stream-like—ah—affairs,” he added for Adam’s benefit. “Undoubtedly, they will be the greatest hazard. We will have to resist any attempt on the part of the ground to force us in their direction.”

  “All set for a pleasant little stroll then,” Lee said, and sat on the edge of the plateau. He let his feet down carefully and stood upright on the black soil, swaying, observing that it was “like trying to walk on treacle,” and then crying out in startled pain as thin, pallid tendrils lashed out from some hidden crevice to wrap themselves tightly about his arm.

  I went to his aid and, as I had hoped, my touch was enough to make them relax and sway writhing away.

  “The magic touch,” he gasped, rubbing his arm. “I knew it would come in useful sooner or later. Thanks, Gerald. You’d better stay handy …”

  The incident, happening so quickly, seemed to have escaped the Professor’s notice. But then he was taken up with helping Adam limp painfully across the plateau. When they reached the rim I steadied the Toparian while he lowered himself to the soil. Maver stepped down next and I followed. The ground gave under my feet as I had expected. It was, as Lee had described it, like treading on a thick layer of treacle.

  And so we set off on the return journey. For reasons of my own I put myself in the lead, leaving Lee and his uncle to follow, supporting Adam between them. The only thing to help me select a starting direction was the fact that the nucleus-mound, the plateau, and our original point of entry into this damned thing must be all more or less on a straight line. But once the black island was out of sight, and that would be very soon, I would have nothing left save .my sense of direction.

  It didn’t let me down. As we made our slow, swaying step-by-lurching-step progress I was able to recall certain landmarks from our inward journey: the chains of pools and the ravine between the slime-covered rock pinnacles. And, again for reasons of my own, I kept my pace slower than it need have been, allowing no space to come between myself and those following. That Lee trod on my heels several times and was inclined to mutter annoyed impatience at my snail-like progress made no difference.

  We stopped from time to time to allow Lee and Mave
r to change places. I felt guilty at not offering to take one of their places and do my bit in helping Adam, who, despite his earlier assurance, was incapable of walking unaided. But I couldn’t do that because I wanted my arms free. I hoped with all my heart that the conclusion I had privately reached was the right one. If it wasn’t, I felt certain we would not be allowed to leave this place. I would know for certain, I told myself, when we arrived at the mist-covering of the Vorted.

  Oddly, for all our very slow progress, the return journey seemed to take less time than had the inward one. But that was only my own assessment, almost certainly rising from the fact I had so much on my mind. I had to concentrate all the time upon what I was doing. From moment to moment I had to hold myself ready for any move on the part of the Vorted to force us from our path. But no such attempt was made. I could only think that the intelligence was relying upon its covering of mist to prevent our final escape. I had to concentrate upon trying to pierce the drifting tentacles ahead, choosing a route that gave the greatest margin of safety between the bubbling pools. Detours were necessary to avoid clumps of growing things, and making those detours I had to keep our original direction always in mind.