Sideslip

by Ted White

Her breasts were surprising. Small, delicate as she was, but firm and high on her chest. Her nipples were hard. I shifted her from my lap, and she stood, her face still on the same level as my own. Her aress fell from her scant hips, and I pushed down with it the half-slip and panties. She stepped out of them and out of her shoes. She wore no stockings. She was nude.

  Without her clothes she was considerably more attractive than with them on, and the elfin quality of her appearance was enhanced. With a distant part of my mind I felt a budding esthetic appreciation.

  She had stopped kissing me now, and was eagerly unbuttoning my shirt, unfastening my belt—struggling with its friction buckle—undoing my pants. Eagerly and efficiently she undressed me until finally I stood, towering over her, as naked as she.

  And I still felt nothing.

  I looked down at her, and she gave me another smile and dropped before me to administer her own expert brand of excitement. After a moment I pushed her away and fell back on the bed.

  “Forget it,” I said. “It’s been a long, hard day.”

  She nodded, mutely. Carefully she pulled the covers from under me, and laid them over me. I felt a weary ache spreading quickly over my body and I knew that in a few short minutes I would be asleep.

  My last waking memories were of Alma slipping into bed next to me, and curling up in front of me, spoon fashion, that fantastic little behind of hers wiggled close into my loins.

  I woke in the morning she was gone, and I felt a few moments of regret over that. But I’d slept well, and I was hungry again, and I was starting to feel human again.

  When I tried it, my door was locked. The door seemed like good solid oak, and it opened inwards. I -tried the hinges, but unlike in the comic strips, the pins wouldn’t pull—they’d been painted over too many times—and I had nothing to pry or knock them loose with. The windows were small panes, set in metal frames that did not open. There were no other exits, no closet even. The bed was too low to the floor for me to try getting under it. I ended up prowling around the room and staring out of the windows for the next hour and a half.

  The view was only moderately interesting. I was in an apartment building somewhere; my view was of the interior of a block. I was perhaps seven stories up; higher buildings around mine blocked the view in all directions. I was apparently facing west, because I recalled the sunlight in the room the night before, and now the sun was only picking out the upper stories of the facing buildings.

  Finally the lock at the door clicked, and Alma came in. She did not seem surprised to find me up. It occurred to me she never seemed surprised, nor even very interested in the events that lay without her own private universe. It was not so much that she was withdrawn but more that—-even during the previous evening’s surprising performance—she was not in any real communication with anything, anyone outside herself.

  I suppose that if I conformed with the TV stereotypes of my profession I would not only have spent the night awake and actively engaged with her in that bed, but I’d be after more of the same now. Clearly she was not unwilling.

  Well, that’s one of the differences between TV and Real Life, I guess, although it’s impossible to convince the young bucks, the teenaged would-be satyrs who cannot imagine any circumstance when they would not be ready and eager to bed any attractive female who made herself available.

  When you reach my age, you’ve developed some maturity—if only by accident. And, speaking purely for myself, it’s no longer quantity but quality that interests me. There has to be an element of communication— there’s an emotional side to sex as well as the physical.

  There were a lot of reasons for my lack of response to Alma—not the least of them all the things I’d gone through the past day—but Alma was the real reason, Alma with her closed shell. Yes, in her own way she would enjoy sex—with me, with anyone—but it was for her, I knew, not so different from the solitary pleasures she might indulge in; she acknowledged me only as a male body, not as a person.

  Now, as she looked at me, I found no hint of the previous night. She neither blushed nor winked. It had happened; it was done with.

  “Will you come with me, please?”

  I followed her into a different room, a comer room, with large windows facing out upon the streets. Through one I could glimpse a bridge—the Queensboro Bridge, I guessed, over the ’East River. We would be somewhere in the east fifties, then.

  There was a small table, set with breakfast, again Standard American: eggs, bacon, and toast, with coffee. My own preferences run to steak and potatoes, but I ate it all..

  When I was done, Alma took away the dishes, and I settled myself into an overstuffed easy chair to await the next round. Fd had it pretty good for the last fourteen hours. It was time for the switcheroo again.

  The door opened, and in came Morgan and Prather. Morgan was as fresh-scrubbed as ever. He was wearing a lapelless bright orange suit that was fresh-pressed. There was still a trace of talc on his cheeks.

  By contrast, Prather was unshaven and looked both meaner and less involved than he had yesterday. He seemed bored, vaguely impatient to be on with his own particular sports. He was waiting for Morgan to exhaust his wiles upon me.

  Morgan sat down opposite me in a chair he’d drawn up for the purpose. Prather found a chair near the door.

  After wishing me a good morning, inquiring cheerily after my sleep, my breakfast, Morgan got down to points.

  “I should like to set your mind at ease, Mr. Archer. I am afraid that you have the impression that our world’s communists plan some drastic sort of invasion of your world.” He set a drink down beside me, drank deeply of his own, and smiled benignly, reassuringly. “What would we do with it, my friend, if we did try to take it? A third of your world is already Communist—you have told me yourself! Africa, South America, they are vulnerable but of what real use to us? We must have an industrialized empire if we are to be really powerful, and to get one for ourselves would be impossible. For—look here, even if we could take over England, or even the United States, just what do you think your Communists would make of it? Would they permit our invasion? True, we are of their ideology. But we are not of their world —we are doubly alien, though we are in fact they themselves! I am sure for instance that there is a Jack Morgan in your United States, unless he was killed in one of your wars, and I am sure that he is, as I am, a dedicated Communist. You see, I have been one since long before the Angels arrived. I cannot imagine having changed. And this Jack Morgan of yours—how would he take my arrival in your world, armed to the teeth and prepared to rule him and his country despotically, eh? Nonsense, Mr. Archer; we could not possibly get away with such things. And yet, I believe, you do not quite trust me yet. . .

  I shrugged. “Let’s be honest, Morgan. What reason have you given me to trust you? Why should I? Where’s my advantage? You and I both know that whether or not I cooperate, sooner or later I’m going to be turned over to that goon over there and he is going to get his jollies making certain that I haven’t held anything out on you, including my mother’s maiden name.”

  Morgan cocked his head for a moment and gave a peculiar stare. “Archer, I’m afraid we’ve both been at cross purposes. From your point of view—yes, I can see how you’d think that. But you’re wrong. How can I prove that to you?”

  “You could let me out of here, for a starter.”

  Prather snorted. Morgan laughed deprecatingly. “Mr. Archer, you are not a prisoner here, except for your own safety. Think for a moment! The Technocrats were combing the city for you. And only a step behind them the yellowjackets. And there are others, equally interested. What would you do with your vaunted freedom, Archer? Where would you go?”

  That caught me up short.

  “Here you are safe, and I think we have proved to you that our hospitality is not quite as bad as you might at first have thought, eh?” And there he had the gall to give me a sly wink. Obviously Alma hadn’t reported to him in any detail.

  “A
ll right,” I said. “Granting all you say, how about getting rid of the butcher over there? Your Mr. Prather makes the hackles rise every time I look at him.”

  “Eh?” Morgan said. “Well, I suppose . . .”

  He got up and went over to confer with Prather. The two spoke in low tones, and Prather shot several intense looks my way.

  I wasn’t fooled. I was a prisoner here, for all the sweet talk. They wanted me—needed me—for their own purposes, and they weren’t about to let me walk -out. I doubted Prather would go much farther than the other side of the door. On the other hand, a thought had come back to me from yesterday ... if I could separate them, get one of them alone . . .

  Morgan mixed a second round of drinks for us, making mine straight Scotch as before. “Our major objective, of course, is, as I said, not the conquest of your world, but the freedom of ours” He handed me my drink. It was a good three shots—equal in size to the last one.

  I let my speech slur a little. “Just how’re you goin’ to do that? Slip into my world an’ pick up a few super weapons that’re lying around?”

  “Just so,” Morgan agreed. “I think I can be candid with you. Our two worlds—they are different variations on the same theme, right? And, with some allowances for the differences introduced after 1938, they are populated by the same people. As I have said—somewhere there is in your world, unless something happened to him, a ‘Jack Morgan’ who is my double. So have we all doubles.”

  “So,” I said, “send over a handful of people to background the situation, check on who runs what installation, then set up your own men for their doubles, and you’ve got an installation, right?”

  “Right. And I am sure that in your world, with no bans on scientific research, with a great war to stimulate weapons development, you will have come up with some interesting and useful weapons for us, in our attempt to break the Angels’ hold.”

  My God, I thought. The atomic bomb—the hydrogen bomb! Did the Angels have defenses against those?

  But another thought occurred to me too. What if, once their doubles infiltrated our world, they stayed?

  Morgan had unwittingly revealed to me their real plans.

  He knew nothing about the weapons of my world—I’d purposely told him nothing. Atomic development was banned here, and the atom bomb had not been thought of. What made him think that they could fight a successful war against the Angels?

  It would be far easier to leave this world for the Angels, and step directly into positions of power in my world.

  Blinking owlishly, I leaned towards him, swaying a bit.

  Thinking that I meant to confide something to him, Morgan also leaned forward.

  And I threw my untouched drink right in his eyes.

  I followed it immediately by lunging forward, grabbing his hair with my left hand, yanking his head forward, and giving him a solid rabbit punch with my right. He fell to my feet, poleaxed.

  It had been fast and neat. He’d made a common mistake, thinking file drunk. A man my weight carries a much larger volume of blood. It takes correspondingly more alcohol to raise the percentage level in my bloodstream to a dangerous level. I felt about as an ordinary man would after one beer.

  I turned Morgan over and began pawing through his pockets. I had been sure he had a gun, a weapon of some sort on him.

  He didn’t. He didn’t even have a set of keys.

  I’d foxed myself.

  I ran over to the windows. A fire escape was outside one window, and I angled my head against the glass so that I could look down it. The glass viewed from that angle was full of ripples, but below I could see nothing out of the ordinary.

  Cautiously, I eased the sash up, and thrust my head and shoulders out.

  There was a flat-sounding crack, and rust flaked off the iron in front of me. I pulled my head in fast. A fresh scar etched the metal a few inches to the right of where my hand had been.

  Lesson number one: They had the floor above as well.

  Lesson number two: They were watching the fire escape.

  Lesson number three: I’d blown it.

  I heard the lock click at the door. Running on the balls of my feet, I managed to get behind the door just as it opened.

  Tweedledum—Mr. Prather—came in, gun in hand, alone. I was never more glad to see a man in my life.

  I kicked the door shut behind me, and chopped the edge of my hand down on his gun arm. I hit him in the upper part of his arm; the gun fell with a thud.

  He turned, a look of real rage on his face. I’ll allow him this: he was fast. With his right arm hanging limp at his side, he got in two good solid blows with his left before I put him down. He hit me one in the gut, one on the jaw. I got him solid in the gut, left him on the carpet with his tongue bulging out and his face purpling.

  People make a real mistake fighting like he did. There’s nothing clean about fighting for your life. He acted like it was a boxing match ... or maybe he’d seen too many movie fights. So right away he lost. I figure he maybe broke some bones in his hand when he slugged me on the jaw; that’s a damfool trick for anyone to try who hasn’t got gloves on. As for the gut punch, he should’ve stuck to them. Half a dozen or so and he might’ve bothered me.

  But I had weight on him, anyway, and I put all my weight behind that one punch. I put it right up just under his rib cage, because I wanted to make it count, get things over with fast. And it did.

  I picked up his gun, and inched the door open cautiously. Nothing happened, so I stuck my head out.

  That was a mistake. Whoever it was was just waiting to see if it was friend or foe. Three silenced bullets plunked into the doorframe over my head.

  So far they were shooting to miss, but letting me know where I was. But I was serious about getting out now, and this sort of leniency couldn’t last that much longer. I ducked back inside, and turned for the window.

  The first thing I saw was a pair of legs descending from above. Even as I saw them, a gun hand dropped into view, and then Tweedledee, the thin, nervous one, was stooping to peer in the window.

  I dropped the gun into my pocket, and picked up Dum by the belt and the collar. Then I started running with him for the window.

  Dee opened his mouth and started gabbling at me. Then he saw I wasn’t stopping, and he raised his gun.

  That was a little too late.

  Dum went right through the raised sash, rippling glass and all. He caught Dee in the chest, and both of them went over the low railing of the fire escape. Last I saw of Dee, he was clutching frantically at Dum as though holding on to him would keep them from going over.

  I pulled myself out the window, and started down the metal steps.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I was A flight down when I noticed a man darting out from somewhere under the foot of the fire escape. He ran around the corner and disappeared. I pulled out my gun, and continued down the clanging metal stairs. As I reached the first floor, there was a flat report above me and a sharp ping by my foot; chips of rusty metal sprayed from the metal treads. I looked up.

  It was probably my old friend from out in the hall. I wondered how many of them there were. He was firing rapidly at me through the stairs, with a pistol. The metal treads were picking off most of his shots before he could even get to me, but the metal splinters were flying about me.

  There was nothing I could do about him; I reached the first floor and the stairs ended with a vertical weighted sliding ladder. I swung onto the bottom rung and with a protesting squeal it swiftly descended to the ground. I was facing the direction in which the street-guard had disappeared, and when he came back around the corner I was ready for him. The ladder touched ground at the moment I snapped a shot at him with the unfamiliar weapon. The shot narrowly missed him and he winced away, raising his pistol at me. I fired again before he could get a shot off, and this time my shot hit him, spinning him around twice and toppling him like a kid’s top that’s hit a pebble.

  Still protected by the fire escape,
I looked about, picking out a direction in which to retreat before reinforcements arrived.

  A large yellow car with grey stripes halted in front of the doorway in which I was crouched. A face appeared at the rear window, peering upward. A rifle appeared beside the man, and he aimed carefully upward. The rifle went off, and there was a distant* choked scream. It sounded like a girl’s voice. Alma? The shots from above ceased.

  “Come on, fella,” the rifleman shouted to me with a faint Southern drawl. Technocrats, I figured, and started out onto the sidewalk. The rifleman opened the door and got out to make room for me, and I could see several other men inside; they’d been prepared for a battle.

  As I neared the curb, I saw the swastika armband on the rifleman’s left arm. I stopped in my tracks. I’d had enough of this bouncing around from one bunch of nuts to another. It was time for me to start making my own tracks, even if I didn’t know where to.

  “C’mon, fella, get in,” said the driver of the car in a Southern accent. “Them babies is goin’ to be cornin’ for us enny moment now.”

  “Uh-uh,” I said, shaking my head. “Thanks for the help but no thanks. I’ve got places to go and things to do, and they don’t include conversations with Herr Goebbels or whoever.” I turned and started in the other direction.

  The rifleman shrugged and looked at the driver. “Take ’em,” I heard the driver drawl, and I started to run.

  The rifleman had been right behind me, however, and before I could get started, he was on me. I started to sweep my arm back at him to knock him down, and felt a pinprick in my shoulder. Grunting, I continued the swing at the man, but my arm felt like a lump of soggy old newspapers, and it flailed helplessly out of control. The man ducked -and grinned.

  “Okay, boys, come on and drag him into the car—he’s a big ’un and I can’t take him by myself!” I heard car doors opening as my eyes momentarily blacked out completely. The soggy feeling had spread to my legs, and I gave up the idea of running.