Aleksandr Abramov, Sergei Abramov. Horsemen from Nowhere
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...ayas.""Five," she corrected me. "The fifth is the Fedchenko glacier."
"I'd choose Greenland," I remarked rather by the way.
Then she laughed, as if dealing with a member of the school chess team
who is asking for a match with the world champion. I felt lost, of a sudden.
"And where to?"
"Nowhere."
I missed the point.
"Why? Every expedition needs a cameraman."
"I don't like to disappoint you, Yuri, but we don't need one." There'll
be scientists and technicians of a number of specialized institutes. The
NIKFI for instance. And don't look at me with those kind ram's eyes. Note
that I didn't say 'stupid' eyes. I simply ask you: can you operate an
introscope? No. Can you photo from behind a wall of opaqueness, say in
infrared rays? No. Can you convert the invisible into the visible with the
aid of an electronic-acoustic transducer? No, again. I can read it on your
carefully shaven face. So you didn't have to shave, after all."
"All right, but how about ordinary camera work?" I still couldn't make
it out. "Just common filmus vulgaris?"
"For filmus vulgaris all one needs is a kid's camera. That's not done
any more. More important is to get an image in opaque media, from outside a
cloud cover. For example, what happens to a model inside the crimson tube?"
I was silent. For an ordinary cameraman, that was differential
calculus.
"So you see, Yuri," she laughed. "You can't do anything. You don't know
the Kirlian method, do you?"
I had never even heard of it.
"Incidentally, it permits distinguishing the living from the
nonliving."
"I can do that without a camera."
But she had already taken up the pose of lecturer.
"On film, living tissue is seen surrounded by a transparent
halo-discharges of high-frequency currents. The more intensive the vital
activities, the brighter the halo."
"It's living tissue if it's naked," I said angrily and got up. "Forget
about personnel. I don't have anything to do in that department. Here
either."
She laughed, but this time differently: gaily and kindly.
"Sit down, Yuri, and don't be down-hearted, we'll go together."
"Where to?" I was still boiling. "Moscow suburbs?"
"No, to Paris."
I didn't believe that sly little devil of a girl till I saw the actual
paper for our assignment to the Paris conference. And now, here, I was
waiting for the same devil, waiting for the angel, and chewing match sticks
with impatience. And I would just miss her when I went over to the desk for
cigarettes. She phoned when I was already making plans to throw the whole
thing over.
"Jesus," I exclaimed, "finally!"
She tossed me her raincoat and danced into the room.
"Have you become a believer?"
"From this minute I believe in the angel who brings forgiveness from
heaven. When's it going to be? Don't keep me waiting."
"The day after tomorrow. Zernov returns tomorrow. The next morning we
take off. The tickets have been ordered. By the way, how did we get to a
first-name basis so quickly?"
Just instinctively. That's not what's worrying you."
She thought for a moment.
"That's true. They're already in the Arctic, you see what I mean. The
captain of the 'Dobrynya' icebreaker, Captain Shchetinnikov, just back from
Archangel came over to the committee. He says that the vast area of the Kara
Sea and the ocean north of Franz-Joseph Land is all free from ice. From
Pulkovo Observatory the report is that ice satellites orbit over the North
Pole several times a day."
"And the committee rejects filming," I added disappointed. "Now's just
the time to photograph."
"Amateurs have been doing that. We'll soon be getting cartloads of
film. That's not the important thing."
"What is important?"
"Contact."
I whistled.
"Don't whistle. Attempts at contact have already been made, though
without success it seems. But English and Dutch scientists have proposed a
programme of contacts. All the materials are in the hands of Osovets. Then
there's this Thompson group that'll have to be dealt with at the congress.
The American delegation is actually divided, the majority do not support
Thompson, but there are some that are in with him. Not very solidly, true,
but they'll be hard nuts to crack in Paris. That's what's important, see?
Wait a minute." Laughing, she grabbed her raincoat and pulled from the
pocket a bulky package covered over with foreign stamps. "I forgot about the
most important thing of all; here's a letter for you from the United States.
You're getting to be famous."
"From Martin," I said, looking at the address.
A strange address, to say the least:
"Yuri Anokhin. First observer of the phenomenon of the rose clouds.
Committee for Fighting Visitors from Space, Moscow, USSR."
"Committee for fighting ..." Irene laughed. "Some programme for
contacts. He's a Thompsonite, all right."
"Here, I'll read it."
Martin wrote that he had returned from the Antarctic expedition to his
airbase near Sand City, in the southwest of the United States. On Thompson's
suggestion, he was immediately assigned to a voluntary society set up by the
Admiral for combating the cosmic visitors. Martin was not surprised at his
assignment. Thompson had told him about it in the plane on the way home.
Neither was he surprised at the position he was offered. When the Admiral
learned that in college Martin had published items in student journals, he
named his press agent. "I have a feeling that the old man doesn't believe
me, he thinks I'm a double, something like a fifth columnist and so he wants
to keep me close by him to see and check for himself. That's why I didn't
tell him what happened to me on the way to our airbase in Sand City. But
I've got to tell somebody, and there's nobody but you. You're the only one
who can disentangle this crazy house I've gotten into. You and I know what
happened at the South Pole; here things seem to be dressed up differently."
The letter was typed, over ten single-spaced pages. "My first article
is not for the press, only for you," he wrote. "You'll see for yourself
whether I'm fit to be a newspaper man." I went through a couple of pages and
nearly jumped.
"Read it," I said to Irene, handing her the pages as I finished them.
"It looks like we're in a hot spot."
Chapter XIII. NEW STYLE WESTERN
Here's what Martin wrote:
The sun had just risen over the horizon when I went out the gates of
the airbase. I was in a hurry, with only 24 hours of time off, and it was at
least an hour's drive to Sand City. I waved gaily to the sleepy watchman, my
ancient two-seater jerked forward and I went sailing along the asphalt.
Something rattled in the back of the car, then a knock, the cylinders were
banging- this was a real piece of junk all right. "About time to get a new
one," I thought to myself, "eight years is much too much. But you get into
the habit, and Mary likes it too".
That's where I was going, to see Mary in Sand City and spend the last
free day I had with her before leaving for New York to report to the
Admiral. The boys at the airbase introduced me to Mary the first day after
my return from Mac-Murdo. She was new at this bar, nothing spectacular, a
girl like any other girl, in a starched white uniform and Elizabeth Taylor
hairdo- they all copy film stars at the bar. There was something about her
that attracted me from the very start, and so every evening off I'd go over
to see her. I even wrote Mom that I had a nice girl, and all that sort of
thing. You know.
This trip I had made up my mind finally and was thinking over how to
tell her. No use holding things up, that's the way I felt. But things were
held up, after all. Some guy was out there on the highway, I honked the
horn, but instead of moving away he jumped about and almost landed under the
car. So I slammed down the brakes and got out:
"Hey, what's wrong, can't you see a car when it's right in front of
you?"
He looked at me, then at the sky and slowly got to his feet, beating
the dust out of his old jeans.
"There's something a lot worse than cars that's frightening people." He
came over to me and asked. "Going into town?"
I nodded and he got in, just as wild-looking as before. Terribly scared
is what I figured, with droplets of sweat all over his forehead, with dark
damp circles around the armpits of his shirt.
"How come you're out training so early?" I asked.
"Much worse," he repeated putting his hand into his pocket. Along with
his handkerchief, a 1952 Barky Jones fell out onto the seat.
I whistled in surprise: "What's this a pursuit?"
I was now sorry that I had got mixed up with him. I don't like highway
encounters of that nature.
"Crazy," he said without anger. "It's not mine, the boss's: I'm just
watching the herd at Viniccio's ranch."
"Cowboy?"
"No," he replied screwing up his face and wiping the sweat off his
forehead. "I can't even ride a horse. But I need money for college."
I smiled to myself: 'escaping gangster turns into vacation-working
student'.
"My name's Mitchell Casey," he said.
I told him my name, hoping not without vanity that because it had been
in the papers since meeting the dragons at MacMurdo he might recognize it,
but I was mistaken. He hadn't been reading the papers or listening to the
radio, had never heard of me, nor of the rose clouds: "Maybe this is a war
or men from Mars have landed, it's about the same, I don't know."
"There's no war yet," I said. "It might be Martians all right, though."
I told him briefly about the rose clouds. But I never expected my story
to produce the reaction that it did. He grabbed for the door as if he wanted
to jump out on the spot, but then he opened his mouth and with trembling
lips asked:
"From the sky?"
I nodded.
"Long rose-coloured cucumbers. Like diving airplanes?"
That surprised me. He seemed to know all about them, though he said he
didn't read the papers.
"I just saw some," he said, and again wiped his forehead, this time
from cold sweat most likely. The meeting with our acquaintances from the
Antarctic seemed to have knocked him out completely.
"So what?" I asked. "They fly and they dive, do a good job. And they're
like cucumbers. But no harm done. Just a fog, that's all. You're a bit of a
coward, aren't you?"
"Anyone would have got scared in my place," he said still all keyed up.
"I nearly went crazy when they doubled my herd."
And, then looking around, as if afraid someone might be listening, he
added softly, "And me too."
I realized then, Yuri, that Mitchell had gone through the same thing
that you and I had. These damn clouds got interested in the herd, dived
down, doubled it and this plucky cowboy tried to drive them off. Then
something totally unexplainable occurred. One of the rose cucumbers
approached him, hovered over his head and ordered him to retreat. Not in
words, naturally, but like a hypnotizer-to go back and get on the horse.
Mitchell told me that he could not do anything other than as he was told.
Without offering any resistance, he went back to the horse and got into the
saddle. What I think is that they wanted someone on horseback because they
already had quite a collection of people on foot. The rest was routine: the
red fog, the complete immobility-you can't move a hand or a foot and it is
as if you were being examined straight through. A very familiar pattern.
When the fog dispersed and the boy came to he couldn't believe his eyes-the
herd had doubled, and to the side, on a horse, was another Mitchell. The
horse was the same, and he was the same, as if in a mirror.
That's when he lost his nerve; and I remember well the first time that
happened to me too. Well, it was the same thing, he ran, he just ran to get
away from it. Then he stopped. The cattle weren't his, he would be
responsible. He thought a bit, and then returned. What he found was what had
been there before the coming of the rose clouds. No extra cattle, no
duplicate horse. So he figured he must have been seeing things, or he was
out of his mind. He drove the cattle into the paddock, and left for town to
see the boss.
All of this is by way of introduction, you understand. I had hardly
quieted down the boy when I myself got the jitters: there they were flying
at house-top level, single file as if it were along a road. Just like Disney
characters, like our radioman at MacMurdo had suggested, not like cucumbers.
Then Mitchell saw them. Dead silence. He was breathing heavily.
That's it again, I thought, recalling how those dirigibles had plunged
into combat in our first aerial fight. But this time they did not even
descend, they simply hurtled by at sonic speed like rose-coloured flashes of
lightning in a lilac sky.
"They're headed for town," Mitchell whispered from behind.
I didn't say anything.
"I wonder why they didn't pay any attention to us."
"Not interested. Two in a car, any number about like us. And I'm tagged
as it is."
He didn't get me.
"We've already met," I explained. "And they remember."
"I don't like this at all," he said and fell silent.
And so we drove on in silence until the town came into sight. We were
about a mile away but for some reason I didn't recognize it. It seemed so
strange in the lilac haze, like a mirage over distant shifting yellow sands.
"What the hell!" I exclaimed in surprise. "Maybe my speedometer's on
the blink. It should
be a good dozen miles yet to town, but there it ,1
is."
"Look up over there!" Mitchell shouted.
Right over the mirage of the town hung a string of rose clouds, sort of
like jellyfish or perhaps umbrellas, or a cross between them. Maybe that's a
mirage too.
"The town's not in the right place," I said. "I don't get it."
"We should have passed old man Johnson's motel by this time," Mitchell
put in. "It's only a mile from town."
I recalled the shrivelled up face of the motel owner and his stentorian
commanding voice: "The world's gone nuts, Don. I'm already beginning to
believe in God." I seemed ready to believe in God too. I was seeing
marvellous unfathomable miracles. Johnson, who ordinarily sat on his porch
and greeted all cars passing by, had vanished. That in itself was a miracle.
Never, in all my travelling to town, had I ever missed old man Johnson
waving us into town. A bigger enigma yet was the disappearance of his motel,
for we couldn't have passed it. There weren't even any signs of a structure
along the road.
On the other hand, the town was coming into full sight. Sand City in a
lilac haze ceased to be a mirage.
"A town like any other," said Mitchell, "but there's something
different here. Maybe we're on another route."
But we were coming in by the usual route. The same red-brick houses,
the same sign boards with big letters reading: 'Juiciest Beef Steak in Sand
City', the same gas station. Even Fritch in a white jacket was standing as
usual near the lightning-split oak tree with his broad smile "What can I do
for you, sir? Oil? Gas?"
Chapter XIV. WEREWOLF CITY
I stopped the car with a screech of brakes so familiar to gas station
attendants round this place.
"Howdy, Fritch. What's doing in town?"
It looked to me like Fritch didn't recognize me. He approached us but
kind of unwillingly, no eagerness, like a person coming into a brightly lit
room from the dark. Still more striking were his eyes: fixed, as if dead,
they looked through us, not at us. He stopped before reaching the car.
"Good morning, sir," he said indifferently in a dull hollow voice.
He didn't use my name.
"What's happening to the city!?" I yelled. "What's it got, wings?"
"Don't know, sir," the voice was Fritch's but in a totally indifferent
monotone. "What would you like, sir?"
No, this wasn't Fritch at all. "Where's old man Johnson's motel gone
to?" I asked impatiently.
He replied without a smile:
"Old man Johnson's motel? Don't know, sir." He took a step closer and,
now with a smile-but such an artificial smile it was that I was horrified.
.. Then, "What can I do for you, some oil, or gas?"
"Okay," I said. "We'll figure this out yet. Let's go, Mitchell." As I
left the gas station, I turned around. Fritch was still standing there on
the roadside, watching us go, his eyes the cold, fixed eyes of a corpse.
"What's wrong with him?" asked Mitchell. "Taken a bit too much this
morning?"
But I knew that Fritch did not drink, anyway nothing more than Pepsi
Cola. This wasn't liquor, it was something inhuman.
"A puppet," I muttered, "a wound-up puppet. 'Don't know, sir. What can
I do for you, sir?' "
You know I'm no coward, Yuri, but honestly I cringed from a premonition
of imminent danger. Too many unaccountable accidents, and worse than down
there in Antarctica. I even wanted to turn around and go back, but there's
no other route to town. And there was no point in going back to the base.
"You know where to find the boss?" I asked Mitchell.
"In the club most likely."
"Okay, we'll begin with the club," I sighed.
"Since the town's right here, there's no use stopping now."
I turned down Eldorado Street racing the car past neat rows of
cottages, all yellow like new-born chicks. There were no pedestrians, nobody
walked-this was an upper-crust neighbourhood, quiet; the big shots had
already left for their offices, and their wives were still stretching in bed
or having late breakfasts in their electrified kitchenettes. Mitchell's boss
was taking a snack in the club, which was at the cross-roads of Main Street
and State. By this time I was fairly ashamed of my unrealised fears-the blue
sky, no rose clouds over head, the heated-up asphalt, the hot wind sweeping
bits of newspaper which might even be carrying the rose-cloud sensation and
stating that it was the concoction of New York nuts. Sand City was fully
protected from any cosmic intruder. Everything returned us to the reality of
quiet town, the way it should be on a sultry summer morning like today.
At least that is the way it seemed to me, because it was all an
illusion, Yuri. There was no morning in the town and it wasn't slumbering or
sleeping. We could see that at once when we turned down State Street.
"Isn't it too early for the club?" I asked Mitchell still thinking by
inertia about the sleeping city.
He laughed-there was a crowd at the intersection that had stopped all
traffic. This was no morning crowd and this was no waking-up city. The sun
shone but the electric street lights were just as bright, as if it were
still last night. Neon lights were still flashing on and off in the
show-windows and on signs. In movie houses, cowboys were shooting, James
Bond was fearlessly on the job seeking out victims to eliminate. Billiard
balls were racing noiselessly over green tables, and the jazz band over at
the "Selena" Restaurant was banging away as loud as a passing train. And on
the sidewalks, pedestrians were walking lazily along, not hurrying to work,
because work had long since ceased, the city was alive with evening life,
not morning duties. As if the people together with the electric lighting
were out to fool time and nature.
"Why the lights? Isn't the sun enough?" Mitchell said in bewilderment.
I pulled up at the curb near the tobacco store. Tossing some change on
the counter I carefully asked the pretty sales girl:
"What's it a holiday today?"
"What holiday?" she asked by way of reply, handing me the cigarettes.
"An ordinary evening of a usual day?"
The immobile blue eyes looked through me-like the dead eyes of Fritch.
"Evening?" I repeated. "Take a look at the sky. What's the sun doing
there if it's evening?"
"Don't know." Her voice was calm and indifferent. "It's evening now and
I don't know anything."
I slowly left the shop. Mitchell was waiting in the car. He had heard
the whole conversation and was probably thinking the same thoughts as I was:
who's crazy, we or everyone in town? Maybe it really was evening and
Mitchell and I were seeing things. I took another close look at the street.
It was part of Route 66 that passed through to New Mexico. The cars were
passing two lanes abreast in both directions. Ordinary United States cars on
an ordinary American highway. All of them had their headlights on.
On an impulse, I grabbed the first passer-by.
"Hey, take your hands off me," he exploded.
He was a little, thick-set but nimble man in a crazy-like bicycle cap.
His eyes were not empty and indifferent, but alive and angry. They looked at
me with revulsion. I turned around and looked at Mitchell who mimicked that
the fat guy must be touched in the head. And the anger of the roly-poly
stranger switched to a different direction.
"You say I'm crazy, do you!" he screamed and lunged for Mitchell.
"You're the ones that are mad, the whole town's gone nuts. Electricity in
the morning, and the only answer I get to all questions is 'I don't know'.
All right, what is it: morning or night?"
"Morning, of course," said Mitchell, "but something's wrong here in
town this morning, I just don't understand."
The metamorphosis of the fat man was amazing. He no longer screamed or
yelled, only quietly smiled stroking Mitchell's sweaty hand. Even his eyes
moistened.
"Thank heavens, one normal man in this nut house of a town," he said
finally still holding on to Mitchell's hand.
"Two," I said extending my own hand. "You're the third. Let's exchange
impressions. We might be able to figure out this number."
We stopped on the edge of the curb separated from the highway by a
colourful string of parked cars, nobody inside.
"Gentlemen, explain this to me," he began, "these tricks with cars.
They ride along, disappear, vanish, into nowhere."
To put it honestly, I didn't get what he was driving at. What was this
"into nowhere". He explained. Only he needed a smoke to calm down. "I don't
usually smoke, but you know it does have a calming effect."
"My name's Lesley Baker, travelling salesman. Women's apparel,
cosmetics. Always on the go, here one day, gone the next. I arrived on the
route from New Mexico, turned onto Route 66. I was crawling along awfully
slow, like a snail. There was this big green van right in front, couldn't
pass it for the life of me. You know how it is, going slow. A toothache's
worse. Then this sign 'You are now entering the quietest city in the United
States'. Quietest, my eye, the craziest, that's more like it. At the city
limits, where the highway widens out-there are no sidewalks-I tried again to
get out ahead of this big van. I just stepped on the gas, and it vanished,
went up into nothing. I was flabbergasted. So I put on the brakes, pulled
over to the side and looked here and there, no van. Evaporated like sugar in
a cup of coffee. I even ran into a barbed-wire fence, lucky I was going
slow."
"Why a barbed-wire fence along the road?" I asked surprised.
"On the highway? There wasn't any highway. It had gone along with the
van. All there was a red open space, a green island-like something at a
distance, and the fence and barbed wire all about. Somebody's farm, I guess.
You don't believe me? Well, I didn't myself. The hell with the van, I
figured, but where did the road go to? I must have been off my rocker. I
turned around and nearly died then and there-a huge black Lincoln was
heading for me right through the wire! It was doing at least a hundred miles
an hour. I didn't even have time to jump, I just closed my eyes. This was
the end for sure. A minute passed, no end. I opened my eyes, no end, no car,
no nothing."
"Maybe it passed by."
"Where? How? On what road?"
"So the road disappeared too?"
He nodded.
"So," I said, "the cars disappeared before reaching the barbed wire?"
"That's just it. One after the other. I stood there some ten minutes
and they kept on disappearing at the edge of the highway. It broke off in
red clay at the very edge of the wire. There I stood like Rip Van Winkle,
blinking my eyes. To all questions, only one answer: 'Don't know.' Why are
the cars driving with headlights on? Don't know. Where are they disappearing
to? Don't know. Maybe going to hell? Don't know. Where's the highway? The
eyes are glassy like those of the dead."
It was already clear to me what kind of city this was. All I wanted was
one more test: to take a look with my own eyes. I looked around and raised
my hand: one of the cars stopped. The driver had glassy eyes too. But I
risked it.
"I'm going to the city limits. Two blocks or so, that's all."
"Hop in," he said indifferently.
I got in beside him. The fat guy and Mitchell got in behind, not quite
understanding what it was all about. The driver turned his head away,
completely apathetic, stepped on the gas, and covered the two blocks in half
a minute.
"Look," Baker from behind whispered in agitation.
In front of us, right across the highway cut off by the red clay were
four rows of rusty barbed wire. One could only see a small portion of the
wire fencework, the rest was hidden behind the houses on the roadside, and
so it seemed as if the whole city were fenced in and isolated from the world
of living human beings. I already had some idea of this thing from Baker's
story, but the reality was still crazier.
"Watch out for the wire," Baker yelled grabbing at the arm of the
driver.
"Where?" was the surprised reply and he pushed away Baker's hand.
"You're nuts."
He obviously didn't see the wire.
"Put on the brakes," I said, "we're getting out here."
The driver slowed down, but I could already see the radiator beginning
to melt in the air. It was as if something invisible were eating the car
away inch by inch. The windshield had gone, then the instrument panel, the
driving wheel, the hands of the driver. This was ghastly-so terrifying that
I instinctively closed my eyes. Then a sharp blow knocked me to the ground.
I pitched into the dust and rolled along on the asphalt roadway, which means
I was flung out at the very edge of the highway. But how did I fly out? The
door of the car was shut, the car hadn't overturned or anything. I raised my
head and in front I saw the body of an unfamiliar grey car. Alongside in the
dust lay unconscious our friend the salesman.
"Are you alive?" asked Mitchell bending down to him. He had a black
eye. "I was knocked right against Baker's bus." He nodded towards the grey
car stuck in the wire roadblock.
"Where's ours?"
He shrugged his shoulders. For a minute or two we stood silent at the
edge of the cut-off highway watching one and the same miracle that had just
left us without a car. The fat travelling salesman had also got to his feet
and had joined our spectacle. It was repeated every three seconds when-at
full speed-a car crossed the edge of the highway. Fords and Pontiacs and
Buicks-all kinds drove in and vanished without a trace, like soap bubbles.
Some of the cars were heading right into us as we stood there, but we did
not move because they simply evaporated two feet in front of us. The entire
process of mysterious and inexplicable vanishings was clearly visible right
here in the hot sunshine. True enough, they did not vanish suddenly but
gradually, by diving, as it were, into some kind of a hole in space and
disappearing there, beginning with the front bumper and winding up with the
back license plate. The whole city seemed to be fenced round with
transparent glass, beyond which there was no highway, no cars, no city at
all.
Probably one and the same thought rankled all three of us: What was
there to do? Return to town? But what kind of marvels might not be awaiting
us there, some kind of weird circus perhaps? What kind of people would there
be, who would be able to speak a normal human word? So far we hadn't met up
with a single normal person except the travelling salesman. I suspected the
doings of the rose clouds, but people hereabouts were not like the
duplicates created at the South Pole. Those were, or seemed to be, human
beings, while these resembled resurrected dead who knew nothing but the
desire to go somewhere, to drive cars, knock billiard balls about and drink
whiskey. I recalled Thompson's version and now for the first time got real
scared. Had they indeed been able to replace the entire population of the
city? Could it be.... No, there was still one more test to make. Only one.
"Let's get back to town, boys," I said to my companions. "We've got to
rinse out heads in a big way or else the nut house is the only place for us.
Judging by the cigarettes, the whiskey here is real."
But I was thinking about Mary.
Chapter XV. PURSUIT
At about noon we arrived at the bar where Mary worked. The show window
and the neon signs were ablaze with light. The owners were not trying to
save on electricity even at high noon. My white duck jumper was wet through
and through with sweat, but it was cool and empty in the bar. The high
stools were vacant; there were only a few couples near the window whispering
and a half-drunk old man in the corner nursing his bottle of brandy and
orange juice.
Mary did not hear us enter. She was standing with her back to us at the
open counter and was putting bottles on the shelves. We climbed onto three
stools and exchanged expressive glances without a word. Mitchell was just
about to call Mary, but I stopped him and signalled for silence. I was going
to do the test myself.
This was indeed the hardest experiment of all in this insane city.
"Mary," I called hardly audibly.
She swung around as if frightened by the sound of my voice. Her
squinting short-sighted eyes without glasses and the bright light blinding
her from the ceiling might have explained her well-mannered indifference
towards us. She did not recognize me.
But she wore her hairdo the way I liked it- rather plain without any
movie-star effects. And she had on a red dress with short sleeves that I
always preferred. All this could account for something else as well. She
knew about my visit and was expecting me. That was a relief, for a minute I
forgot about any doubts and fears.
"Mary," I said louder.
The answer was a coquettish smile, with head tipped to one side,
symbolically stressing the trained readiness to serve her customer, but that
typified any girl at the bar, not Mary. With the boys she knew, she was
different.
"What's the matter, baby?" I asked. "I'm Don!"
"What's the difference, Don or John?" she responded with a playful
shrug of the shoulders and a glance with meaning, but she failed to
recognize me. "Anything I can do for you?"
"Hey, look at me, will you?" I said rudely.
"What for?" came her surprised respond, but she looked.
I saw two huge bulging eyes-not hers-blue and narrow like the girls in
pictures by Salvador Dali, and always lively, kind or angry. There were the
cold dead eyes of Fritch, the eyes of the girl in the tobacco store, the
eyes of the driver that evaporated on the highway with his car-the glassy
eyes of a doll. A puppet. Not alive, that was it. The test was a failure.
There weren't any live people in that city. Then the instantaneous decision
to run. Anywhere, just to get out of it all before it was too late, before
all this damned horror invaded us completely.
"Follow me!" I shouted, jumping off the stool.
The fat man was disappointed expecting the promised drink, but Mitchell
got the message. A bright kid. When we were out in the street he said, "How
will I find the boss now?"
"You won't find your boss anywhere here," I said. "There aren't any
people here, just make believe, half-people. Let's beat it."
The fat man couldn't get anything through his head, but obediently
followed behind from fear; he obviously didn't relish staying alone in this
weird city. I'm afraid that even Mitchell wasn't fully aware of what was
going on, but at least he didn't argue. He had seen enough bizarre events
along the road today, It was enough for him!
"If we have to clear out, then we will," he remarked philosophically.
"Do you remember where we left the car?"
I looked around, my "corvette" wasn't on the corner. I must have left
it farther down the street. In its place near the curb, about two or three
yards from us was a black police car, headlights ablaze. There were a couple
of policemen in uniform inside, and two more-one with a broken nose, must've
been a former boxer- stood next to the open door. On the other side of the
street, near a sign that read "Commercial Bank" were two more. They were all
following us with intent but hardly alive, penetrating eyes. I didn't like
that at all.
The sergeant said something to those in the car. The concentrated look
on his face was ominous. They were definitely waiting for someone. Maybe us,
shot through my mind. Anything could happen in this upside-down city.
"Hurry up, Mitch," I said looking around, "we seem to be in for it."
"Over that way," he replied and ran, weaving through the cars parked at
the curb.
I slipped around a truck that nearly hit me and got to the other side
of the street some distance away from the suspicious black wagon. Just in
time, too. The sergeant stepped out onto the pavement and raised his hand.
"Hey, you, stop!"
But I had already swung into the side street, a dark canyon-like alley
between houses without signs or windows. The fat guy dashed with surprising
agility and caught up with me, grabbed my hand:
"Look what they're doing!"
I turned around. The policemen had strung out and were crossing the
street on the run. In front was the sergeant breathing heavily and reaching
for his gun. Noticing me turn around, he shouted:
"Stop or I'll shoot!"
I didn't want to see how his gun worked, particularly here when I had
figured out the origin of this town and its population. I was lucky-I heard
the whistle of bullets after I had jumped behind an empty car. The closely
parked chain of cars made it easier for us to manoeuvre. With amazing
nimbleness spurred on by fear, Baker and Mitchell dived, crouching, and
raced across the street.
I knew this side-street. Somewhere along here there should be two
houses with an arched gateway between them. There you could get through to
the next street and catch a passing car or End one: maybe our own. We left
it somewhere nearby on the corner of just such a narrow side-street. Or we
might hide in the repair shop. A week before when Mary and I were walking
past, the shop was empty and there was a "To Let" sign up. I remembered the
shop when we went under the arched gateway. The policemen were stuck some
distance behind.
"This way!" I shouted to my companions and pulled on the door.
The padlock and sign were still hanging there and my jerk didn't open
the door. Then I rammed it with my shoulder, it creaked but held.
Then Mitchell tried with his whole body. The door groaned and collapsed
in a jangle of falling metal.
But there wasn't anything behind it, it didn't lead anywhere. We faced
a dark opening filled with a thick black jelly-like something. At first we
thought it was simply the darkness of an unlighted entrance way out of the
sunlight in this narrow alley. I pushed forward into the darkness, but
jumped back again: it turned out to be elastic like rubber. Now I could see
it perfectly well-a definitely black something, perceptible to the touch,
but awfully dense and resilient, blown up like an automobile tire or
compressed smoke.
Then Mitchell plunged into it, he jumped into the darkness like a
wildcat and rebounded like I had. Actually, it-the something-just threw him
back. It was most likely impenetrable even to a cannon ball. I figured-I was
convinced of this-that the whole inside of the house was the same: no rooms,
no people, darkness pure and simple with the resilience of a net.
"What is it?" Mitchell asked horrified.
He was scared stiff like in the morning on the highway. But there was
no more time to analyse impressions. Our pursuers were getting closer. They
had probably entered the archway. But between us and the dense springy black
substance was a narrow-about a foot wide-space of ordinary darkness, maybe
of the same kind but sort of rarefied to the constituency of fog or gas. A
London smog or pea soup where you don't see more than a yard away. I put out
my hand, it disappeared in it as if cut off. I got up and pressed against
the compressed darkness in the depth of the doorway and heard Baker yell
out, "Where are you guys?"
Mitchell's hand found me and he saw at once how to get out. Together we
pulled the fat travelling salesman through the opening and tried to vanish
into the darkness by pressing as hard as possible so that the treacherous
resilient thing beyond did not throw us out again.
The door to the repair shop where we were hiding was round the corner
of a brick wall that jutted out at this point. The policemen had already
looked down the side street but could not see us, yet even an idiot could
have guessed we couldn't have been able to run the length of the street and
hide.
"They're some place around here," the sergeant said. The wind carried
his words. "Try it along the wall."
Bursts of machine-gun fire followed one after the other. The bullets
did not touch us hidden behind the jutting portion of the wall, but they
whistled by and crunched into the brick knocking out bits of the wall. The
three of us were breathing heavily, tense with nerves at the bursting point.
I was afraid the salesman might give up, so I held him by the throat. If he
squeaks, I thought, I'll have to press harder. By then shots were ringing
out from the other side of the street, the police were firing down entrance
ways and into indentations. I know that type and whispered to Mitchell:
"Give me your pistol!"
I wouldn't have done it in a reasonable city with normal policemen even
in a similar situation, but in this backside-to town all means would do. So
I didn't tremble when I reached in the dark for Mitchell's plaything.
Cautiously, I looked round the jutting wall and slowly raised the gun till I
had the big mug of the sergeant in the sight, then I pressed the trigger.
There was a sharp report and I could clearly see the head of the policeman
jerk from the impact of the bullet. It even seemed to me that I saw a neat
round hole at the bridge of the nose. But the sergeant did not fall, he
didn't even reel.
"I've got'em," he cried out enthusiastically. "They're hiding around
the corner."
"How'd you miss him?" said Mitchell down-heartedly.
I did not answer. I was positive I'd got the policeman square in the
forehead. I simply couldn't have missed. I've shot and won prizes. This
could only mean that these puppets were not afraid of bullets. I was
trembling all over now so I didn't even aim, I just pumped the whole clip
into the big-cheeked sergeant. I could almost physically feel the bullets
plump into the body.
Nothing happened. He didn't even feel them, didn't jerk or try to
escape. Could it be that, inside, he was all that rubber that we were hiding
close to now?
I threw down the useless pistol and left the hiding place. Now nothing
mattered any more, there could be only one end.
At that moment something happened, not exactly sudden, I wouldn't say.
Something had been changing in the situation all along, simply in the heat
of the fight we hadn't noticed properly. The air about was going redder,
little by little, then deep crimson. I drove the last clip of bullets into
the sergeant without being able to see him properly in his murky
surroundings. And when the pistol fell to the ground, I looked at it
automatically, but it wasn't there: under my feet was a thick crimson jelly.
A fog of the same colour had enveloped everything. Only the figures of the
policemen stood dimly at a distance like purple shadows. The fog was
thickening all the time, finally it got as dense jam. But it did not hamper
our breathing or movements in the least.
I don't know how long this lasted, a minute, half an hour or an hour,
but all of a sudden it had rapidly and unnoticeably melted away. When it was
over, a totally different picture opened up to us. There were no policemen,
no houses, no streets, only the brick-like sun-baked desert and the sky with
ordinary clouds scudding along high up. Off in the distance was the hazy
dark ribbon of the highway, and in front of us, all entangled in barbed
wire, was the upturned car of our fat travelling salesman.
"What was it all about? Was it a dream?" he asked.
His voice was so excited it came out hoarse, he could hardly speak, his
tongue wouldn't obey, like people who are regaining the capacity to speak.
"No," and I patted him on the shoulder for encouragement. "I don't want
to console you. This was no dream but complete reality. And we are the only
participants."
Here I was mistaken. There was yet another witness who had watched
events from the sidelines, so to speak. We found him a bit later. It took us
about a quarter of an hour to get to a motel, an ancient structure but with
a nice new shiny concrete-glass-aluminium garage. And Johnson, as usual, was
sitting on the steps of his porch. He jumped up when he saw us and seemed
unnaturally happy.
"Don?" he said not quite convinced. "Where you from?"
"From the inside of hell," I said. "From the branch office, it has here
on the earth."
"You been in this crazy house?" He looked at us with horror in his
eyes.
"Yes, I was there all right," I assured him. "I'll give the whole
story, only give me a drink of something, that is, if you yourself are no
mirage."
No, he wasn't. The iced whiskey wasn't either. It was a great relief to
sit down and hear what it was like from the outside of this city.
Johnson saw it all very suddenly. He was sitting, dozing and all at
once he came to, looked around and froze stiff: to the left where there had
never been anything, except dried up clay, was a twin city. To the right was
Sand City and to the left was Sand City. "I thought this was the end, the
end of the world! I was not drunk, could see straight, no doubling up. I
went into the house, then came back again, but the same thing: me in the
middle of two twin cities, was it a mirage? After all, it might be, this is
a desert, you know. Well, the twin city was here all right, never evaporated
and didn't melt. And worse, there wasn't a single car on the highway.
Then all of a sudden, it got dark and hazy, a fog or something like a
fog, smoke or something, or like a storm cloud grazing the ground, an orange
red." As I listened to Johnson's story, I noticed that every witness gave
the colours a little differently. The fog was purple, or cherry, or crimson
or red. But whatever it was, it lifted finally and then here we were coming
along the road.
Later still, Mary had her own story of the fog. She had really been
waiting for me, and the dress she had on was just like that of the phantom
girl in the fog. She also told us what had happened in the city. I won't
relate it, since I'm sending along a couple of newspaper clippings. You'll
figure it all out better than I can."
I put down the last page of the letter and waited until Irene had
finished reading. We looked at each other and failed to find words. We were
probably both thinking the same thing: is it really possible that our
everyday earthly life can get so close to a fairy tale?
Chapter XVI. MOSCOW TO PARIS
The clipping Martin sent from the Sand City Tribune read:
"A curious meteorological phenomenon occurred yesterday in our city. At
half past seven yesterday evening, when the bars and stores and movie houses
all along State Street were lighted up brightly, a strange reddish fog
descended on the city. Some say the colour was violet. Actually, this was no
ordinary fog because visibility over considerable distances was not
impaired, all things were clearly discernible like on a summer morning of a
cloudless day. True, the fog did thicken to the consistency of an ordinary
Los Angeles smog. They say it's worse than the London fog. No one knows
exactly how long it thickened. Probably not for long because most of the
witnesses we questioned claim that the fog remained transparent all the time
and that it was only the environment-houses, people and even the air-that
took on a deep purple or almost crimson hue, as if one were looking through
red glasses. At first, the people stopped, looked at the sky and since there
was nothing to be seen, calmly continued on their way. The fog did not
affect amusement shows, movies and the like because it wasn't even noticed
there. The event persisted for about an hour and then the fog, if you can
call it a fog, dispersed and the city became its evening self again.
"Meteorologist James Backley, who comes from Sand City and is visiting
here at present, explained that this phenomenon cannot be classed as
meteorological. He described it rather as an enormous rarefied cloud of
minute particles of an artificial dye dispersed in the air, probably brought
in by the wind from some dye works within an area of 100-150 miles radius.
Such a highly atomized and nondispersible accumulation of minute dye
particles is a rare event indeed, but not exceptional and may be carried *
by the wind for many miles.
"The editors believe that the rumours started about some kind of
rose-coloured clouds are completely groundless. The rose clouds are to be
sought in polar and not subtropical regions of the continent. As for the
statement made by Mr. Johnson, the owner of a motel on the federal highway,
that he saw two identical cities on either side of his motel, it comes as no
surprise to the editors or to people acquainted with Mr. Johnson. The
tourist season has not yet started and the motel is empty most of the time.
It seems obvious that a drink or two of whiskey produced these two cities
that eventful day.
"Quite another explanation of these events comes from our sharpshooter
Lammy Cochen, owner of the 'Orion' bar and leader of the 'Wild' Club. He
says it's the work of the Reds. 'Look out for the Reds, for they not only
colour politics, but even the air we breathe.' Doesn't that link up with New
York lawyer Roy Desmond being beaten up as he emerged from a bar in our
city? He refused to answer certain questions relating to the coming
presidential elections. There might be some connection. The police who
immediately came to the site of the disturbance were unable to identify any
of the participants."
Admiral Thompson gave an interview to the "Time and People" magazine:
'PLAGUE GRIPS SAND CITY, SAYS ADMIRAL, ROSE CLOUDS TO BLAME.'
"During the past few days, a little southern town on Route 66 has been
the focus of attention of the whole country. Papers have already * published
reports of the red fog that so suddenly enveloped the city and the story of
the travelling salesman Lesley Baker about the bizarre events in the twin
city. Our reporter interviewed retired Admiral Thompson, a member of the
United States Antarctic expedition and the first eye witness of the rose
clouds in action."
"What do you think about the events in Sand City, sir?"
"Well, I believe that it is the deep concern of the ordinary citizen
about the future of human society."
"You believe that there are grounds for concern?"
"Yes, I do. The 'clouds' are not confining themselves to the copying of
individuals, but they are synthesizing whole strata of society. I will give
only the latest cases: the ocean liner 'Alamade' with its crew and
passengers in toto, the big store in Buffalo on a particularly busy day, the
plastics works in Evansville. It cannot be that all witnesses had the same
dream as if they had lived together for years, and then the duplicate
factory that vanished. No one can convince me that it was all merely a
mirage caused by a temperature gradient in different layers of air. And it
is not of the slightest importance that it persisted for only minutes. The
important thing is that nobody can convincingly demonstrate which one of the
factories disappeared and which remained!"
"When speaking of the events in Sand City at the Apollo Club, you
mentioned the plague. Now in what sense was that?"
"Oh, the most direct. The city must be isolated, subjected to
systematic tests and unabated observations in the future. The problem is the
same: are these real people or are they all duplicates? Unfortunately,
neither the authorities nor society at large are paying anywhere near the
necessary attention to this problem."
"You couldn't be exaggerating a bit, could you, sir?" our reporter
objected. "Do you really accuse the country of indifference to the cosmic
visitors?"
The Admiral replied with irony:
"Well, not if one speaks of rose-cloud skirts and horsemen-from-nowhere
hairdos. Or, say, the congress of spiritualists that declared the clouds to
be the spirits of the dead returning to the world with a gift from almighty
God. That's not indifference! Or take the twelve-hour filibustering speeches
of senators about the 'horsemen' in Congress so as to kill a bill on taxing
big incomes. Or stock brokers using the ...
