by L. P. Davies
Mr. Leming was there, in his shirt sleeves, standing with his back to the bench. And Maver, leaning against the wall, was shouting, “Switch off! For God’s sake, Martin, switch off!”
I had an impression of Leming turning to the bench. That picture came as I bounced back from the impact, rolling over on my side with my face close to Lee’s feet. Between his legs I could see the dancing blue screen of the magnetic field. And I could see mist seeping through. Then the light flicked out of existence, leaving a thin column of mist hanging in the still, dry air.
Watching it—fearfully watching that small part of a Vorted that had followed us back into our world —I heard Leming say, “You’ve brought a sample of weather back with you. We’ve got enough fog of our own …” And then: “It’s good to see you again, John.”
Lee helped me concernedly to my feet. “I’m all right,” I told him. “Just a bump on the head.”
The mist column was settling slowly. Now it was a coiling white pool hovering on the concrete. Now it was gone.
“Not fog,” the Professor said to Leming, eyeing the empty floor. “Something very different. Very different indeed. And how have you been keeping, Martin?”
It was a trite, unemotional greeting that was, in its way, an echo of Lee’s not-so-long-ago “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
“You have all the appearance of having had a rough time,” Leming observed mildly. He turned his gaze on Lee and me. “You two, also. Sadly the worse for wear.” He eyed us carefully from head to toe. “How you have been able to get in such a state in such a short space of time is past belief.”
Lee asked: “What day is it, sir? What is the time?”
“What day?” Leming’s brows lifted almost comically.
“We have experienced some discrepancy in the passage of time,” Maver explained vaguely.
“I see. Interesting. I look forward to hearing all about it. In the meantime you wish to get your bearings, as it were. It is still Saturday morning.” Leming elaborately consulted his watch. “The time is a few minutes after eight-fifteen. If you, Morton and Miller, require more details, your absence was noticed by Mrs. Robson at seven-fifteen when she came over to the laboratory after having failed to contact you by phone. She broke the news to me some five minutes later. I spared time only to dress myself. Then I started work immediately. That would be approximately three-quarters of an hour ago. I happened upon the necessary combination of readings only seconds before your somewhat violent return. Does that satisfy you? It seems you are all in urgent need of the services of a bathroom. You may also be hungry. Mrs. Robson has, of course, delayed breakfast.” Breakfast… I met Lee’s eye.
“Something,” said he, “more palatable than water and mush.”
* * *
We had taken turns to make use of the bathroom. We had changed into clean clothes, and breakfast was over. In the sun-filled lounge Professor Maver told his story to Leming. I left it to Lee to supply our quota.
It was an abridged version, at least so far as Maver was concerned; I had the feeling that he and Leming would later go through the whole thing again, in greater detail, probably making notes as they went along. But there it was. Maver told his part, Lee added his bit, and Maver rounded the whole thing off from the point where our ways had met and linked. It wasn’t until the end that I was allowed my little say, such as it was.
“There are certain—ah—facets,” Maver said blandly, “which require elucidation. Perhaps Morton here can add a little more to the story. I notice that he is no longer wearing his wrist-watch. I ask myself —has he discarded it simply because he had come to realise its uselessness?”
So he knew. I was disappointed.
“I didn’t bring it back with me,” I said, wondering when he had realised its significance.
“You gave it to Adam?”
“Yes,” I said, and Lee asked petulantly: “What’s so damned unusual about Gerald’s watch?”
“Let it be Morton’s privilege to tell us,” Maver said smugly. And then went on to cancel out some of that privilege before I even had chance to open my mouth.
“He was the one, you recall, who led us through the mist. It was his intervention that prevented Adam being digested. It was from his hands—his hand, rather—that the living matter of the Vorted recoiled.
And you will also recall that when I attempted on my own to force through the mist I was unable to do so. But it parted to allow Morton, and so the rest of us, to pass through. It seemed obvious that he was in possession of something abhorrent, even dangerous, to the matter of the cell. Process of elimination led to his watch.”
“It had a luminous dial,” I said.
“And so was radioactive,” Maver supplied. “Only to a very small degree, of course, not enough to do the slightest harm to a human being. But still enough to set a Geiger counter ticking. And more than enough to make itself felt in a place where there is no such thing as radioactivity.
“Perhaps”—he nodded to himself—“it was present in the dimension at one time, but was nullified in some way by the magnetic devices used during the war. Certainly, as we know from Adam’s stay here, a small amount of radioactivity has no adverse effects upon the Toparians. But a living organism such as the cell, born after the war, was affected by it.”
He turned back to me. “And you told Adam?”
“I gave him the watch and left him to figure it out for himself,” I said, and then went on to explain about the bargain I had made.
“It was partly bluff,” I said at the end. “I had to rely upon Adam’s dazed condition and the fact he had other things on his mind. It was a question of stampeding him into accepting before he had time to think it all out. I mean, he could have used force to make me disgorge the secret. And once he knew about the watch, we wouldn’t have stood a chance. Apart from anything else, he would have known that if the Vorted had managed to get into our world, our radioactivity would have killed it eventually. The fall-out from nuclear tests …”
“When did you find out about the watch?” Lee demanded resentfully.
“When we were in the cell,” I said. “But I wasn’t sure at first. It was only because I wear it on my left wrist and I happen to be left-handed that I found out. I didn’t know for sure until we came back through the mist.”
But Leming, it seemed, was more interested in the Vorted than in the means of its destruction.
“Your surmise, John,” said he, leaning forward intently, “is that it was the product of …”
We left them to it, Lee and I. We went out into the sunshine where trees and flowers were real trees and flowers. Birds were whistling as birds ought to whistle, and white flecks of happy-looking cloud drifted across a pale blue sky.
We left the laboratory alone …
“I’ve seen enough of that place to last me a lifetime,” Lee said feelingly as we walked by the metal door. “I wonder if Uncle John intends to dismantle his equipment?”
“I hope so,” I said fervently.
In the knee-high grass behind the concrete building, Lee counted steps. “Fifteen, sixteen …” He stopped to look back, assessing the distance. “Just about here was where we built the cairn.”
We wandered on. The trees thinned. A smooth green bank sloped to a gently-trickling stream.
“And here,” Lee said. “Smack inside the Vorted.”
“Quite a thought,” I said, when something seemed expected of me.
“A watch …” He couldn’t get over it. “A stupid, paltry, tin-pot watch …”
“It was a good one,” I said with some regret. “It was the first one I’d ever owned. I can remember buying it. I chose one in the window and then I went into the shop. The man behind the counter had a way with him. I didn’t particularly need a watch with a luminous dial. He talked me into it.”
“I wonder what he’d say,” he mused, “if he knew where it had finished up?” We turned to make our way back to the house.
THE END
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L. P. Davies, Dimension A