The 38th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK

by Chester S. Geier

  Evening came. Further work for the day was halted. Downing’s arms ached, and the heaviness of his head warned him that he wasn’t as well as he’d thought. His activity, light as it had been, had made itself only too strongly felt. He decided to postpone his plans for leaving Jorelle until he was absolutely certain of his recovery.

  As he sat in the garden with Lethra and Churran, Downing remembered his roadster. Concern for the safety of the car struck him abruptly. He questioned his hosts about it as best he could through the medium of signs.

  Churran assured Downing that the roadster was intact. Downing’s interest in the car seemed to sadden Churran and Lethra. They gazed at each other with a kind of quiet despair.

  The days passed quickly for Downing. He spent the greater part of each in Churran’s workshop, laboring industriously over such minor tasks as he could perform. He was learning rapidly to use the various tools and machines, and his increasing skill seemed a constant delight to Churran. He was learning the language of Jorelle, too, for Lethra and Churran seized every opportunity to explain the meaning of words to him. His vocabulary was soon large enough to encompass simple conversations.

  “You are not of Jorelle,” Churran told Downing one evening as they sat in the garden. “Is it true, then, that you have come from some other world?”

  Downing nodded slowly. “From a world called Earth. But where it is now, and how I arrived here, are things unknown to me.” Downing explained about his attack of fever and how, while driving the roadster, he had suddenly found himself in Jorelle.

  “But is not your strange machine a vehicle for traveling between worlds?” Lethra asked in surprise. “Such Churran and I have thought it to be.”

  “Why, no,” Downing responded. “It is merely a device for traveling on the surface of a world.” He gazed at Lethra narrowly. “What do you know of traveling between worlds?”

  “It is said our people once possessed this ability.” Lethra replied. “Legends tell that we originally came from a world called Trantor. We of Jorelle are—how shall I say it?—travelers who go to live in another place.”

  “Colonists,” Downing supplied.

  “A strange word,” Lethra said. “Anyway, not many of us came to live here on Jorelle. Before the machines that traveled between worlds could bring more, there was what legends call a war. Because of this, the machines no longer came to Jorelle.”

  “War!” Churran said abruptly. “It is an evil word. We do not speak it here, except in connection with the legends.”

  “But is there no war on Jorelle?” Downing asked.

  “No,” Churran said. “Why should there be? There are too few of us here on Jorelle for war. We are happy. Our system of service keeps our few wants amply supplied.”

  “Service?” Downing echoed. “Is that your term for government?”

  Churran smiled. “And what is government?”

  “Why, it is a body of selected men who make and enforce the laws by which a nation is ruled.”

  “We have no government on Jorelle,” Churran said with a shake of his graying locks. “And no laws save those of service, which are the basic laws of survival among civilized men. Stated simply, to obtain your bread, you must be of service to the man who makes the bread.”

  “Is this literal?” Downing wanted to know. “I mean, do you deal directly with the butcher, the baker, and the weaver, exchanging your products for theirs?”

  “No. Everyone deals through a service distribution center. My product, once it reaches the service distribution center, becomes the property of others, just as the products of others become my property. But everything is apportioned off according to the needs of the individual. No one product is considered more important than other products. No one individual is entitled to any more than other individuals.”

  “Is it not thus on your world?” Lethra asked Downing.

  He looked away. “No… The people of my world work for a medium of exchange which we call money. With money they buy the things they need. Some make more money than others, and are able to buy not only more things but better things. And some do not make enough money, and never have all the things they need.”

  “Madness!” Churran growled. “Sheer madness. How can all be happy in a world like that?”

  “Very few are happy,” Downing admitted with a sigh.

  “And yet you wish to return there,” Lethra said.

  Downing shrugged. “It is where I belong. Everything I know or love is there.”

  A silence fell over Lethra and Churran. It was now too dark for Downing to see their faces, but he sensed, from the special quality of their silence, that his words had saddened them as they always did. He knew they wanted very much for him to stay, and in other circumstances he would have been only too glad to do so. Jorelle was a beautiful world, a place where a man could be happy and at peace. And both Lethra and Churran were two of the finest people he had ever known. He could easily grow to love them—especially Lethra, who would make the prettiest, sweetest wife a man could ever hope to have. But, Downing reminded himself, he already had these things in Grace and Ogden. And more, they were his kind of people. They were of the world which he knew and belonged to.

  Churran’s voice came suddenly into the darkness. “I have been thinking about how it could have happened that you entered Jorelle. I have read the old books—the books written by the men who built the machines that once traveled between the worlds—and I think I know. The old books tell of worlds existing side by side—yet the one completely unknown to the other. It is possible that such is the relationship between your world and Jorelle. Perhaps at one certain point the barrier between Earth and Jorelle was very thin. You happened to reach this point in your vehicle while ill with what you call fever. You entered Jorelle—not because of the thinness of the barrier at that point, but because of your state of mind brought on by the fever. The old books hint that there are strange powers slumbering within our minds. Who knows but that your fever awakened one of them, giving you the ability to enter coexistent worlds where the barriers between them happened to be very thin?”

  “It is an interesting subject,” Downing said. His voice quickened with eagerness. “But…but do you think it is possible for me to get back to Earth?”

  “Perhaps,” Churran responded slowly. “You are not native to Jorelle. Thus it should be easier for you to enter your world than it was to leave it.”

  It was a slim hope, but Downing clung to it. He decided to put Churran’s theory to a test. He was now completely well. The roadster was waiting on a stretch of lawn beside the house where he had brought it some weeks before. Everything was in readiness.

  * * * *

  In the morning Downing began his preparations for leaving. He had been wearing a set of garments belonging to Churran. Now he donned his own which, due to Lethra’s painstaking care, were in excellent condition. He gave the roadster a final check-over, and then he was ready.

  Lethra and Churran stood by to see him off. Lethra’s tawny eyes swam in tears which she was futilely trying to hold back, and sadness deepened the lines of Churran’s face.

  Downing touched Lethra’s cheek. “Smile, little Lethra. Memory of you with tears in your eyes would not be a happy one. And the only memories I want to take with me are happy ones.”

  With a superbly gallant effort, Lethra smiled—but two large tears rolled sparkling down her cheeks.

  “That’s right,” Downing said. “That’s the way I’ll remember you. Farewell, Lethra.”

  “Farewell,” she said softly. “Farewell, Ross.”

  Downing gripped Churran’s arm. Then he turned, quickly, slid in under the wheel of the roadster, and roared off. Downing sped down the road in the direction from which he had approached Churran’s house when first finding himself in Jorelle. Occasionally he slowed to glance back toward the house and note its diminishing
size. Finally it was just a white angularity almost lost in vegetation far down the road. Downing tensed. He thought. Now!

  His senses flaring alertly, Downing cruised the roadster along the road. But the twisting and wrenching sensation did not come, though he went past the spot where he judged he had earlier entered Jorelle. Was return to Earth impossible after all? he wondered with dismay. Then an idea struck him. Churran had said the translation from Earth to Jorelle involved the mind. Thus, perhaps, merely touching the critical juncture between the two worlds was not enough. Perhaps the mind had again to be brought into play.

  But how? Downing thought despairingly. How could he know how his mind had acted during fever? Abruptly Downing remembered Churran’s statement that it should be easier to gain access to Earth than it had been to leave it. Maybe will-power, the sheer desire to get back to Earth, would be enough to get him over the borderline.

  Downing spun the roadster about and once more cruised down the road. This time, however, he reiterated over and over in his mind the overpowering wish to get back mingled with the insistent, confident assertion that he would get back.

  And it worked! A sudden giddiness seized him, as though he were falling, falling endlessly and to nowhere. Then—the familiar twisting and wrenching sensation. When it had gone, Downing found himself on a road which was the well-remembered gray of concrete. The sky overhead was blue, and the landscape was the old untidy one of weeds and fences and advertisements.

  Downing’s elation was cut short as the realization struck into him that it was cold. Cold? He frowned in bewilderment. It had been late spring when he had last seen Earth, and he had been in Jorelle a little less than two months. It should now be summer, and warm, yet—yet somehow it was cold.

  Downing glanced at the sky again. Now he saw that evening was approaching. He estimated that he would reach the city shortly before dark. He hunched over the steering wheel of the roadster, and his foot pressed the accelerator down, down.

  A gas station appeared up the road. Downing had earlier noted that his supply of gas was getting low. Now he decided to refill while he had the opportunity. He slowed the roadster, turned it into the driveway of the gas station.

  Downing fidgeted impatiently while the tank was being filled. After what seemed years, the station attendant approached the window for his change.

  Downing thrust a bill at the man and was shifting the roadster into gear when suddenly the station attendant spoke.

  “Say, mister, if I were you I’d do something about those license plates.”

  “What’s wrong with them?” Downing demanded.

  “They’re two years out of date,” the station attendant said. “You’re going to get pinched if a cop catches you.”

  “Two years out of date!” Downing gasped. “But—but that’s impossible!”

  “It’s possible, all right. Take a look at them yourself.” The station attendant peered searchingly at Downing. “Say, where you been to lost track of time like that?”

  “Vacation,” Downing muttered. “A long vacation.” He shrugged aside the preferred handful of change and completed his act of putting the roadster into motion. His thoughts whirled chaotically. Two years! Two years! Incredibly, two years had passed during his sojourn in Jorelle of a little less than two months!

  Miles swept by under the spinning wheels of the roadster while Downing mulled the chilling knowledge over in his mind, warming it for assimilation, for dazed acceptance as fact. Time-rate, he thought abruptly. The time-rate of Jorelle was not the same as that of Earth. One month on Jorelle was almost equivalent to one year on Earth.

  Downing was appalled. How could he ever hope now to convince Grace and Ogden of his innocence? The passing of two years must have hardened their belief in his guilt beyond all hope of cracking.

  Downing thought despairingly of turning the roadster around and going back to Jorelle. Then he remembered that return was possible only through a special mental condition brought on by fever—and he was perfectly well.

  He sought desperately for some course of action. With Grace and Ogden against him, there was no one to whom he could turn for help. And what money he had wouldn’t last very long. The thought of starting anew, almost penniless and under an assumed identity, was humiliating.

  Abruptly the though come to Downing that during the past two years the real thief might have been found. Forlorn as the possibility seemed, Downing decided to act on it. He pressed down on the accelerator with renewed determination.

  Night was falling when Downing reached the city. The coldness of which he had earlier become aware was now emphasized by a light flurry of snow. A clock set over the entrance of a building he passed showed the time to be a little after five. Ogden should still be at the office, Downing thought. He’d go there first of all.

  Downing pulled up in front of the familiar squat building which had once housed the firm of Ogden and Downing. The illuminated sign jutting out over the door now announced it as Harris Ogden and Co. The last trickles of a tide of homeward bound employees were flowing out into the street. Downing pulled his hat low over his eyes and waited until all had gone. Then he pulled open the door and strode quickly into the building.

  Entering the reception room, Downing saw light streaming through the partly opened door of Ogden’s office. He pushed past the gate in the wooden railing and approached the door. As he did so, he became aware of voices.

  “…thought I’d surprise you darling. Know what today is?”

  “If you expected me to forget, you’re doomed to disappointment. Our anniversary, of course.”

  There was a sudden silence. Downing sucked the silence into his lungs along with a deep slow breath. The first voice had been Grace’s, the second Ogden’s.

  Straightening with a return of purpose, Downing pushed the door open, strode into the room beyond. Grace and Ogden were wrapped in a close embrace, oblivious of everything save the pressure of their lips, one on the other.

  They parted. Ogden saw Downing first. His chubby face paled as though at sight of a ghost. Startled at his expression, Grace whirled.

  “Ross!” The name burst from the two of them almost simultaneously.

  Downing’s smile was thin-lipped and sardonic. “Well! Nobody seems to have been doing much crying over me. The mice will play while the cat’s away, eh?” He was bitterly sarcastic. He was using the wrong approach, and he knew it. He had forgotten that two months to him was two years to them. But it had hurt, entering the room and finding the girl he had been engaged to marry in the arms of his best friend.

  Ogden pulled up his plump figure with indignation. “See here, Ross, if anyone’s in a position to make explanations it’s yourself. As for your remark about the mice and the cat. I’ll have you understand that Grace is now my wife. We’ve been married exactly a year today.” Ogden’s full lips twisted in a sneer. “What have you come back for? Were you hoping to find the safe open?”

  Downing shook his head gravely. “I came back to clear myself, Harris.”

  “After two years? Don’t be a fool. Better take my advice and go back into hiding.”

  “The police are still looking for you, Ross,” Grace put in. “If they find you here in the city, it’ll mean prison.”

  Downing held up a hand. “Please. You both are thoroughly convinced of my guilt, and I don’t blame you. All I ask is that you listen to my explanation.” Downing spoke earnestly and softly. He began with the day the fever struck him, and, dazed, losing the slip of paper bearing the new combination to the company safe. He told of having seen Fred Radek pick up something from the floor of his office. Then the vacation on which he had gone to overcome his fever. The newspaper and his trip back to the city. The weird transition to Jorelle, and finally his return, to find that two years had passed.

  “A likely story,” Ogden grunted. “How on earth you ever expected people as intel
ligent as Grace and myself to swallow such a fairy tale is beyond my understanding.”

  “I know just how it sounds,” Downing said patiently. “Give me credit for a little intelligence myself, won’t you? Do you think I’d be telling you such a story if it weren’t true? I swear by everything that’s honorable and decent that this actually happened.” Downing threw out his hands imploringly. “Harris, think back upon our friendship. Think of the swell times we had together. Was there ever anything about my character or personality which would suggest I was capable of doing such a rotten thing as robbing the safe?” Downing turned to the girl. “Grace, do you?”

  They were cold and unmoved. The sneer crept back upon Ogden’s face. Grace lowered her eyes and looked away.

  “Look here,” Downing pursued doggedly. “Harris, after the theft do you recall any of the office staff suddenly quitting, wearing new clothes, coming into money, or anything at all the least bit out of the ordinary happening?”

  Ogden shrugged plump shoulders. “After two years it isn’t easy to remember a good deal. But I do seem to recall Fred Radek quitting a few months after the theft. He was supposed to have left for another job, or something of the sort.”

  “Radek!” Downing exclaimed. “The same man who picked something from the floor of my office—something which very likely could have been the combination to the safe!”

  Ogden shrugged again. “You’d have to find Radek to prove anything. And in two years he’s had enough time to put a lot of distance behind himself. Anyway, I prefer to let sleeping dogs lie. This matter is finished as far as I’m concerned.”

  “But…but aren’t you going to give me a chance to clear myself?” Downing asked in dismay.

  “And do what amounts almost to cutting my own throat at the same time?” Ogden countered. He laughed harshly. “If I were successful in helping you, I’d have to take you back into the business as a partner. And why should I do that, when the business as it now is, is the result of my own efforts during the past two years? No—I’ve got all the gravy on my plate, and I intend to keep it there.”