boucher book oct28.pdf - Index of

166 Anthony Boucher
Starvel trembled. “Cosmos knows I doed not.”
“Five mans know that you doed.”
“Never. I only sayed—”
“You only! Enough!”
The rod appeared in the man’s hand only for an instant. Brent saw no flame
or discharge, but Starvel was stretched out on the ground and the two aides were
picking him up as callously as though he were a log.
The man turned toward Brent, who was taking no chances. He flexed his legs and
sprang into the air. His fingertips grasped the rim of the balcony above them, and his
feet shot out into the white-robed man’s face. His arm and shoulder muscles tensed
to their utmost. The smooth plastic surface was hell to keep a grip on. Beneath, he
could see his adversary struggling blindly to his feet and groping for the rod. At last,
desperately, Brent swung himself up and over the edge.
There was no time to contemplate the beauties of the orderly terrace garden.
There was only time to note that there was but one door, and to make for it. It was
open and led to a long corridor. Brent turned to the nearest of the many identical
doors. Apartments? So—he was taking a chance; whatever was behind that door, the
odds were better than with an armed policeman you’d just kicked in the face. Brent
had always favored the devil you don’t know—or he’d never have found himself in
this strange world. He walked toward the door, and it opened.
He hurried into an empty room, glancing back to see the door shut by itself.
The room had two other doors. Each of them opened equally obligingly. Bathroom
and bedroom. No kitchen. (His stomach growled a comment.) No people. And no
exit from the apartment but the door he had come through.
He forced himself to sit down and think. Anything might happen before the
Stapper caught up with him, for he had no doubt that was what the white-robed
man must be.
What had he learned about the twenty-fifth century in this brief encounter?
You must wear an identification plaque. (Memo: How to get one?) You must
not use irregular verbs (or nouns; the Stapper had said “mans”). You must not speak
against Barrier, whoever or whatever that meant. You must beware white- robed men
who lurk behind false walls. You must watch out for rods that kill (query: or merely
stun?). Doors open by selenium cells (query: how do they lock?). You must—
The door opened. It was not the Stapper who stood there, but a tall and majestic
woman of, at a guess, sixty. A noble figure—“Roman matron” were the words that
flashed into Brent’s mind.
The presence of a total stranger in her apartment seemed nowise disconcerting.
She opened her arms in a broad gesture of welcome. “John Brent!” she exclaimed in
delighted recognition. “It beed so long!”
“I don’t want a brilliant young scientific genius!” Derringer had roared when Brent
answered his cryptically worded ad. “I’ve got ’em here in the laboratory. They’ve
done grand work on the time machine. I couldn’t live without ’em, and there’s not
a one of ’em I’d trust out of this century. Not out of this decade. What I want is
four things: A knowledge of history, for a background of analogy to understand
what’s been going on; linguistic ability, to adjust yourself as rapidly as possible to