Elspeth nodded and frowned at the closing door. She felt all at once a little begrimed. Falling in love had always come as easily to her as breathing. At various times she had oozed emotion over a math teacher (she hated figures,), a pimply delivery boy, a small bird that had nested in a tree outside her window, a lady athletic coach at school, a Canadian lacrosse professional, a writer with a long pink goatee, a famous actress.
But love itself was something that had not come easily—it had not come at all as yet. Within herself she had always reserved an indefinable something, a something which she had never intended to give until she knew herself to be honestly and irretrievably a lover—a beloved lover.
SHE thought, a little bitterly, that she had undoubtedly been the worst sort of a triple fool to have so withheld herself. But even as she uttered this silent condemnation she knew that it was as much a part of her as her eyelashes. It was something she could not help, something she would never be able to change.
Yet Juana had done one thing for her. The little dark girl had showed her that her current emotional unheaval was not the real one for which she had waited so long. She was infatuated—but with the idea of Marshal Henry rather than with the man himself.
She stripped off her clothes quickly and crept naked between the coarse linen sheets of her bed, turned out the light. Somehow the rough cloth, instead of the silk of her nightgown against her skin, helped to salve a sorely torn conscience.
Being unwordly and utterly honest, she looked for a chance to tell Marshal Henry the truth about her feelings the next day. But the marshal was not there. He had taken off hurriedly in an effort to end delay on the Mexican treaty at Brownsville.
He left a little note with his regrets, a note that said:
Elly—If I could think of anything to compensate for the loss of your presence—a flower, a jewel, a bit of verse—I should have left it with this note.
Unfortunately, my dear, I can think of nothing but you. So be patient until my return. Times shall not always be so difficult for such as we.
He signed it simply with his name. Elspeth looked at it and then at. Juana, who had handed her the note. Impulsively she gave it to the girl to read. Juana read it twice, handed it back without a word. But her huge dark eyes were suspiciously liquid.
"You may not see him again as soon as you both expect, Elly," the dark redhead said quietly.
Feeling utterly useless, Elspeth got one of the official drivers to take her to where Mack was working. To her surprise she was driven past the long factory shed where the Pipits were in process of manufacture to the larger plant surrounding the rocket-launching field. "He's over there," her driver informed her, stopping.
Mack, his face tanned, one cheek grimy, sleeves rolled up, was frowning over a set of complex blueprints in a sort of steel shed which adjoined the rocket-launching platform. Surrounding him were a number of leathery looking engineers.
"Hi, Elly," he greeted her, and once more she was surprised at the unexpected charm of his grin. He seemed genuinely glad to see her. He looked, she thought, a little tired and she had an unaccountable and wholly maternal desire to chide him for not taking better care of himself.
Then he was beside her, his brawny arm inside hers, introducing her to the others, "Buy's slumming," he said.
"I am not," she replied with dismal lack of wit. "I've—well, I've been rather busy myself."
"That we know," said Mack, mocking but not jeering. He drew her apart with a nod of apology to the others, walked her out onto the great flat launching field. "We're just about washed up here, Elly—you, Juana and I. I just got word from her that we may take off on another mission tonight. I've just about got these space-ship plans pat now. It's a good thing I've done a bit of engineering in my day. Some of the techniques these chaps have are appallingly advanced. I've been wading over my head for two weeks."
"Washed up—what do you mean?" Elly asked him, startled. "Are we going back to Spindrift Island and Mr. Horelle?"
"Eventually," said Mack quietly. "Juana's getting the cues. But I think we're visiting another world first. It seems our assignment here fits into a situation there."
"Lord!" said Elly inelegantly. This took a bit of getting used to. She was not at all certain that she could stand the various wrenches and upheavals involved in adjustment to still another version of Earth—to say nothing of playing an active part in one of its crises.
Then she looked at Mack, saw his serene readiness, recalled that their roles had been reversed. It was she who had embarked upon the expedition readily, light-heartedly, while Mack had had difficulty in fitting himself to the parallel time track theorem.
All at once she understood why Juana had visited her the night before, had warned her not to get in too deep with the marshal, had skilfully pierced the fraudulent root of her love. She also sensed new meaning in the dark redhead's parting remark that morning. Her respect for the dark girl rose another notch.
"All right, Mack," she said, putting her hands into her jacket pockets. "When, where, how and why?"
"Juana has the facts," said Mack. "She got them this morning. We've got to get something from some other world to clean up our mission on this one."
"Just give me my cues," said Elspeth. "I think I'd better get back to what is laughingly called my lodgings and pack."
"Swell," said the engineer. "We may have to fly it in the Pipit. So don't let your poetic soul wander after a trick cloud formation or a flock of birds on the way. We don't want you missing at this stage of the game."
She looked hard at the lower part of his face, squinting a little. Mack blinked, fidgeted, finally said, "What's the matter? Is something wrong, Elly?"
"Your mouth," she replied. "It's far too big." With which she walked back to her car and driver, feeling quite well pleased with herself. At least she had made Mack drop the drafting compass he had held in his hand.
But in the car her thoughts became not so pleasant. So the assignment was going on and they were to travel into yet another version of Earth. She considered the how and why of it without constructive results. In the end she sighed and sat back against the cushions, closing her eyes.
Mack was going—Juana, of course, had seen to that. The big lug carried and fetched like some Saint Bernard dog at the little redhead's slightest flicker of desire. Yes, Mack, who had reacted in such ornery fashion to his entry into this Columbian world, was muzzled up and sitting on his hinder, paws in the air, all but pleading to be taken into some other alien existence—because the lush Juana flashed a smile in his direction.
Elspeth opened her eyes and said some very unladylike words—for she knew that she, too, was hooked inextricably in the interworld parade. It was, she thought, an unforeseen and dismal fate for a young lady who had once said, "Rabbit," for good luck before opening her eyes on the first day of each and every month.
That night the three of them took off from the Norman Headquarters in the Pipit—accompanied by a quiet young husky, who had been trained to operate the A functional little vehicle and was to fly it back.
"Where are we going?" Elspeth asked Juana, who seemed thoroughly at home in the air.
"We're picking up a train at Natchez," the dark redhead told her. "I'll brief you later on our assignment." She turned her eyes meaningfully toward the back seat, where the young husky sat, implying she did not wish to talk further in his presence.
Thus reproved, Elspeth kept half-resentful silence. She had an unpleasant feeling of being out of things, of being the merest of pawns. But there was nothing she could do about it at the moment—so she kept quiet while Mack brought the Pipit down on a highway north of their destination and drove it over a stretch of bumpy highway and through a night-dark Natchez to the vast ornate barn of the railroad station.
XI
ELSPETH did not awake until the rocket-drawn special train was slowing to a jerky stop at St. Louis. She rolled over in her bed, flung out an arm and struck the wall of the compartment beside
her. This restored her to full consciousness and she sat up, yawning and rubbing her eyes.
The train did another stop-start, all but tossing her against the wall. Apparently, while a rocket drive could get under way smoothly, braking was another matter. She looked through the small round window by the head of her bunk, saw that they were in fact coming into a city. It was bright sunlight outside and the watch on her wrist informed her that it was almost noon.
They had barely made the train, which was awaiting them in the Natchez station, had been hurriedly bundled aboard its rearmost indigo car, a car which, Juana informed them, was to be theirs during the rest of their brief stay in the Columbian world.
At that moment Elspeth had hated the smaller, darker girl. She seemed as gay and high spirited as a child getting on a vacation express after a term of boarding school. Mack had been hot and tired and a trifle grumpy; and as for herself, Elspeth felt thoroughly wilted inside and out. An involuntary glimpse of herself in a station concourse mirror had not raised her morale. She looked, she had discovered, at least as badly as she felt.
"Let's take the last three staterooms," Juana suggested as a white porter ushered them into the ornate car. The front two-thirds were taken up with staterooms lined neatly in a row; the final third was a combined observation lounge and buffet. The decor was elaborately lush but charming, with much lacy mahogany grillework and gold leaf.
"This is Finance Minister Alston's own private car," the steward informed them in a rich Southern accent as he stowed their belongings in their rooms. He seemed singularly proud of the fact.
Mack, Elspeth noticed, refused to give up a heavy looking leather briefcase, even kept it stowed between his feet when they adjourned to the lounge for a nightcap after the train had started. She wondered vaguely what was in it but was too tired to ask.
"What makes you so gay?" she inquired bluntly of Juana after a yawn.
"We're going to my world," the girl replied, sparkling over her highball.
"What's it like?" inquired Mack, looking interested.
Juana merely laughed. "You'll find out soon enough, dear ones."
"When do we make the—change or whatever it is?" Mack asked.
"We transfer at the next tangential point," Juana told him. "It's somewhere in Kansas—close to Topeka. The cyclones have something to do with it."
"That's right," mused Mack. "Come to think of it Hatteras is a storm center too."
"If you lovely people will excuse me," said Elspeth, yawning again, "I'm going to turn in. I'm a wreck and I know it."
Their good nights had been casual and sensing herself more unwanted than ever, Elspeth had retired to her stateroom, determined not to sleep. Feeling like the original fifth wheel, she decided to relive every moment she had spent with the black marshal. She had got as far as the New Orleans balcony episode when slumber ambushed her neatly.
Now they were coming into a city— she caught sight of a large signboard advertising a St. Louis beer and realized where they were. Their car was due to be shunted onto the rear of another train here, a train bound for California. She decided to get up and see what was going on. Also, she was hungry.
MACK and Juana were already in the lounge—Mack in his robe, Juana in a breath-taking negligee—when Elspeth, feeling about one-third groomed, emerged from her stateroom fully dressed. There were appetizing aromas of bacon and coffee in the air and the steward-porter, whose name was Soames, greeted her with a smile.
"Hi, you people," Elspeth said to all of them indiscriminately. "You look disgustingly well-fed and happy." She noted that Mack still had the briefcase with him. It aroused her curiosity.
"May I fix you some breakfast, Miss Marriner?" Soames inquired politely. Elspeth shook her head.
"No breakfast," she told him at the bidding of her stomach. "What can you fix in the way of a full meal?"
What Soames fixed in his shining copper little kitchenette was quite miraculous. There was first a thick hot soup on a beef-and-chicken base which was unlike anything in her memory but was delicious. He followed this with a thick and tender small steak, souffle potatoes, asparagus hollandaise, a tossed green salad and zabaglione, along with a café royale for a finisher.
"These poets with their ethereal appetites!" murmured Mack as Elspeth finished the last of her salad and Soames removed it in favor of the zabaglione, which he spooned from a small tureen.
"Quiet—can't you see this woman is hungry?" said Juana.
Elspeth took three spoonfuls of her zabaglione and realized that, although it was incredibly good, she could eat no more. She explained to Soames and, when the others turned her down, asked him to put it in her stateroom. "I'm not going to let it get away," she told the steward, who grinned and removed it.
She sat back and lit a cigarette and then sipped her café royale. Mack said assiduously, "Are you sure you wouldn't rather have a large black cigar?"
"Mack, stop being unkind," said Juana sharply.
"That's the only Mack I know," Elspeth told her. She transferred her attention to the photographer. "Incidentally, are you attached to that briefcase by an umbilical cord or what?"
"Oh!" Mack looked briefly abashed. Then, "I'm not supposed to let this out of my touch," he explained. "It's got the spaceship plans and a sample of the fuel Weston invented. It seems he has some atomic racket our next world is going to need."
"Incidentally, friends," said Juana, sitting up straight and pulling her perfect legs up under her, "since we're already on our way across Missouri I might as well give you an idea of what's ahead."
THEY settled themselves and the dark readhead went on. "In the first place my particular world is in a jam that makes this little Columbia-Mexico trouble look like a game of badminton. There are two whole sets of wars in the making—not wars involving mere nations or hemispheres but the entire world. It has happened before and we've pulled through—but this time it may mean the end of civilization everywhere."
"Nice people you come from," said Mack, pursing his lips.
"Shut up," said Juana. "It isn't the people's fault. It isn't their leaders either. What happened—unlike this world we are leaving—is that our science went galloping so far ahead of our culture that it upset the entire balance. It enabled world population to triple in three generations, and that didn't help.
"The result is chaos, except in the Western Hemisphere. Asia, of course, is the big threat. They have the hundreds of millions and the ancient ideas —although they have put new clothes on them. At the moment they are stopped in Europe—but they have simply transferred their attentions to the Orient.
"China, Malaya and Indonesia have fallen into the lap of their dictator. Japan and India are in ferment. Their dictator offers the usual revolutionary panacea to the so-called common man, then turns him into a slave to his system. It's older than the pyramids."
"And how does our spaceship help?" Elspeth inquired.
"Hold your ponies," said Juana pertly. "I'm coming to it. The President of the United States—he's the third Roosevelt to hold office—has called a conference of the so-called Atlantic Powers and South America in San Francisco to increase their awareness of the menace to freedom in Asia.
"It's not going to be successful. The European nations are concerned only with their own front yard and South America is resentful because North America has focused its attention and money on Europe. Something is needed to shock the world, to offer it a possible way out from its overpopulation dilemma."
"I begin to understand," said Elspeth. "Space flight."
"Exactly," Juana replied. "It is our job to put the contents of Mack's briefcase into the hands of the President of the United States himself—and to see that he realizes its value. In return, we are to get a shield for the Columbian disintegrator the Watchers have learned my world has."
"That sounds like quite a package— if he's tangled up in this conference and everything," said Mack, looking troubled.
"It is—but not impossible," Juana
replied with quiet confidence. "There is a plan, of course. President Roosevelt happens to be extremely devoted to his daughter—and his daughter is intensely ambitious in a literary way. In short, she wants to be a poet." Juana's eyes came to rest upon Elspeth.
"I don't understand!" exclaimed the latter, feeling a sudden sense of panic. "How is her wanting to be a poet going to—"
"It will," said Juana, smiling. "You see, you are going to enter San Francisco as an extremely avant garde English poetess. Don't worry—that's all arranged." She nodded toward a table and said, "We have even had some of your poems published by an English house in this world of mine we're about to enter."
"But it's impossible!" gasped Elspeth. She rose lifted the book from the table, leafed through it. Incredibly, although paper and binding were of a type new to her, there were her verses, the slim little end-product of so many hours and days and months and years of soul-searching work.
She glimpsed the contents page, felt sudden nostalgia quicken within her at sight of the titles—My Love is Yesterday, Luisa, Irish Sea, The Slender Wing and all the others. All at once she was no longer in this alien train, speeding toward an alien destination on an alien world.
She was back with a black-haired young ruffian named Kevin, who had made violent love to her on a windy afternoon in a ruined castle keep overlooking St. George's Channel. She was again regarding the flight of a swift gray-blue swallow as it darted amid the spires and chimney tops of a green-and-white New England town. She was back amid an incredible cluster of brilliant—
Mack whistled, said, "Come out of it, Elly."
She did, laid down the book, smiled her apology to Juana, who smiled faintly back. "I'm sorry," she told them. "But seeing my work brought back memories and I lost myself in them."
"You're fortunate to be able to dream," said the dark girl, drawing an incredulous look from the practical Mack. Then Juana went on with her briefing. "You'll be interviewed by the newspapers within an hour of your arrival. From the moment the story appears things will take care of themselves."
House of Many Worlds Page 10