The radiance was accompanied by sensation: wrenching, twisting, wringing which might be inside Blake, or actually heaving the raft on which they crouched. It seemed to him that this small square was the only safe refuge in a world gone suddenly mad.
Now that his eyes had adjusted to the light, dim as it was, Blake could see walls—if they were walls—billowing like smoke beyond. The green glow was about them on four sides and beyond that was utter chaos.
Other lights flickered, blazed, and were erased by patches of dark, all the blacker in contrast. Once a cone of cold blue, somehow deadly, roofed them in for a space. Blake caught glimpses of other things, and he dared not believe them real. Strange vehicles flashed by and several times the platform was in open country—once a countryside where a war was in progress, judging by the flares of red, the roars and concussions which rocked the raft and deafened the two clinging to it.
The other whimpered in fear, burying his head, but his hands did not release their hold on the lever. Blake wavered to him. That bar must control this impossible journey. If they were ever to stop, his companion must let go. Under him the carrier vibrated with a life of its own, and always outside the green bubble weird scenes developed and broke. Blake crawled to the other, pulled at his arm. But the grip with which the frightened man clung to the simple control was so frozen that Blake could not break it. Finally he had to bend the other's fingers loose one by one.
As the hands dropped, the lever snapped up. There was a whirling, a sickening swing. Blake slumped, bumping his head as the flitting shadows outside the green solidified.
"Wake up! Wake up!" Fingers raked painfully across his skinned face.
"What—?"
There was a real light on, a steady glow, softer than that of the electricity he knew. And he could see the man who was bending over him. A small man, thin to the point of emaciation, with an unruly lock of dull brown hair flopping down to his wide, wild eyes. Hands jerked at Blake, trying to pull him up.
"Wake up, damn you!" There were tiny white flakes of foam at the corners of the other's mouth. "Where are we—tell me, where are we?" His voice shrilled to a half-scream.
Blake levered himself up and looked around. They were still on the metal platform but it was apparent that they were not in the underground prison to which Scappa had consigned them. This was a large room and the floor was paved with blocks of a rust-red, the same shade tiling the walls. There were no lighting fixtures he could see, the glow appeared to diffuse from the ceiling. Long bench tables ran around three of the sides, tables covered with a multitude of objects Blake associated with a laboratory.
Except for the two on the carrier the room was empty, but a flight of stairs led up into unknown regions. Blake edged toward the rim of the platform, eluding the grab the other made for him.
"Don't go!"
"Look here," Blake turned on him, "as long as you don't fool around with that lever we're staying here. But I want to know where we are."
Level travel was the only logical—the only sane—explanation of what had happened to them. And when the other looked at the control stick as if it were a flamethrower pointed at him, Blake thought that he could be trusted not to touch it again.
Blake dropped his feet to the floor of that strange laboratory. He had half-expected that act to break the illusion—that everything would vanish when he tried to prove its reality. He stood up and moved a full step away. Nothing happened. It was solid under foot as the streets of the city where he had walked earlier. The faint plop-plop which had registered for the past moment or two proved to be the drip of water from a pipe running into a basin.
Water! Blake lurched across, catching at the table to regain his balance, to hold his hand under the leaky tap. Liquid ran over his dirty palm, trickled between his fingers. There was a row of buttons in the wall above the pipe. Made reckless by his thirst, he pushed the outer one on the right. The drip became a warm stream.
On the edge of the basin was a small cup, clean and dry. Blake filled it to the brim, gulping the tepid water. His thirst satisfied, he washed the grime from his puffed and swollen hands, allowing the water to run refreshingly over the deep purple gouges about his wrists before he splashed it over his face, where it stung in the scraped skin of his mouth and cheeks.
"Where are we?"
Blake looked around. The man had moved to the edge of the carrier and was staring about, curiosity plainly battling his fear. He was younger than Blake had first judged him, perhaps not beyond his own years, and his clothing consisted of a ragged pullover and a pair of dirt streaked corduroy pants. His brown hair needed clipping and his thin hands were never still, either pulling at his clothing or brushing that lock of hair out of his eyes and rubbing his chin.
"You know as much about it as I do," Blake countered.
The fellow did not look formidable, not that he would improve upon closer acquaintance either. But because they had made that queer journey together they were now united with an invisible, if uneasy bond.
"I'm Lefty Conners," the other introduced himself abruptly. "I'm a runner for Big John Torforta." He watched Blake narrowly as if trying to measure the effect of that announcement.
"Blake Walker, I was kidnapped by Scappa."
Lefty shivered. "He got me, too. Said I was workin' in his territory. That big goon of his put me to sleep and then I woke up in that cellar. Who you workin' for?"
"Nobody. I was with some FBI men and I think Scappa wanted to find out what I knew about them."
"Feds, yet! Whatta yuh know!" Lefty's interest was colored by awe. "Scappa's got th' Feds after him! Big John'll give a bill to hear that. But—" he glanced around and remembered, "we gotta get outta here first. Only where's 'here'?"
"We came when you pulled the control on that," Blake indicated the carrier.
"I couldn't!" protested Lefty vehemently. "I tell you I walked all around that place we were stuck in—all around. And there wasn't nothin' like this—nothin' at all!"
"What's your explanation then?" Blake silenced the other effectively. His own version of what had happened to them was one he had no intention of voicing as yet. He had been in the hands of Pranj's dupes—and this was, without doubt, Pranj's means of traveling to other time levels. It looked as if someone had imprisoned them in the "contact" point on his world and Lefty's meddling had wafted them through a whole series of successor levels, which would account for the strange things Blake had sighted.
But how much of this dared he pass along to his new comrade-in-misfortune? Suppose by some miracle they could return to their own world? Then all that he told Lefty would cancel out his claim of ignorance. He decided to keep his mouth shut at least for the present.
"How about that hole in the floor you mentioned?"
Lefty, clearly startled, looked up at the ceiling. "You mean this here's some kind of an elevator, and we came down?"
Weak as that was, Blake took it. "Your guess is as good as mine. At least we're out of that cellar."
Lefty brightened. "We sure are. And there ain't none of those goons hangin' round neither. What you say we have a look-see up them stairs? Geeze, jus' let me outta here and Big John'll pay plenty for an earful about this. Whatta silly lookin' joint this is. Whatta yuh suppose they do in here?" His nervousness was fading fast as his interest in his new surroundings grew.
"I'd say this was a laboratory."
"Like where they make atom bombs? Geeze—is that why the Feds are after Scappa? Maybe we'd better make tracks outta here but fast!"
Blake wanted to explore, he agreed with Lefty that far. But should they leave the vicinity of the carrier, their one link with their home world? He hesitated as Lefty, his self-confidence increasing with every stride, started toward the stairs.
"Get a move on, can't yuh?" the impatient whisper floated down as Blake followed, still reluctant.
He climbed into a short hall from which another stairway led up a second flight, and a half open door offered an invitation. Lefty was half crouched by the latter post of observation.
"It's some kinda store." But he did not appear too sure of his identification.
Shelves lined the walls beyond, crowded with small boxes and jars. The light was subdued and did not extend clear to the front of the room. Blake ventured in.
More shelves, save for where the door broke the pattern. There were no counters but a series of small tables with stools filled the main part of the open space. It might be a restaurant or cafe.
Blake tiptoed across to the front. There was another, wider door, perhaps giving on the street. His hand, resting on its surface, felt movement and he pushed aside a small panel. Yes—a street outside!
Snow lay in ragged, dirty patches, tinted blue by the rays of curious lamps fixed irregularly to the walls of neighboring buildings. He could see no tall structures and the street was narrow. Distinctly this was not the city he knew.
"Get away from there!" Lefty's hand clawed at his shoulder. "Want some cop to see us? We could get picked up for a break-and-enter job jus' bein' here!"
Blake closed the panel. Lefty was right; he had no desire to attract attention. But he had to learn where they were. This must be played slow and easy, without Lefty catching on for as long as possible.
If he could find a newspaper or its equivalent—some clue. Blake turned to the nearest shelves and picked up one of the containers, looking for a label. The pot was earthenware, beautifully molded, the cone top peaked into a knob. And the knob was a small head. Blake brought it into the light.
A head, right enough, but the head of nothing which had ever lived on any earth he could imagine—a hideous, grinning devil's head. Something like a gargoyle with a voodoo mask added. He put it back and explored farther.
There were no labels on the jars and they were tightly sealed. But there were variations in the head knobs which perhaps identified their contents to buyers. The horned and grinning one was lined up with ten identical fellows. But next to that regiment was a colony of long fanged, wolfish things, and beyond them a collection of a dozen or so he recognized almost with relief as owls, very realistically portrayed. A swift inventory showed demons of various sorts and a few more animals and birds.
"What's in them things?" Lefty did not venture to touch the jars, but paced along the shelves surveying them.
"No way of telling."
Why didn't Lefty question their surroundings—this building? Surely he was not so stupid that he could not see this was extraordinary.
"Say!" Lefty stopped short, "D'yuh know—I think this is one of them ritzy beauty shops where rich broads get their stuff straight from Paris."
"Could be." But Blake doubted if any woman would care for a jar of cosmetics enhanced by some of the gargoyle visages he could spot.
"Well," Lefty reached the door, "we ain't gonna get out this way. I bet if we laid a finger on the front door we'd raise an alarm to bring half the precinct boys down on our necks. Those ritzy places ain't never push-overs. Let's case the rest of the joint."
He went back into the hall and started up the second flight of stairs. Blake would rather have returned to the carrier. That platform had brought them here and if they were ever to return, it must return them. Was now the time to tell Lefty the truth? But something inside him still urged caution.
The stair gave on a second hall, longer than the one below. Blake surmised that the shop occupied only a limited portion of the building. Spaced along the wall were five doors, but none were open and there were no visible knobs or latches. The faint light coming from a blue line which ran along the molding made that clear. Lefty inspected the first with open surprise.
"Where's the knob?" he asked.
"The door might push to one side." But Blake was in no hurry to test his own suggestion. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was to walk into the private quarters of some other-level native, and try to explain not only who he was but what he was doing there in the middle of the night. With a faint shiver he imagined what would happen in a reversed situation in his own world—a marooned time traveler forced to account for himself before an assembly of indignant householders and police.
But Lefty was troubled by no such worries. He pushed at the nearest door, and when it resisted his efforts, went to the next and the next.
"What th'—!" As he reached the last door it did not wait for his touch but slid smoothly back into the wall.
A trap? Almost it had the appearance of one. Lefty made no move to enter the dark space beyond. Were they now expected? Blake wanted to sprint for the uncertain safety of the carrier. But Lefty still teetered in the doorway. Curiosity was battling his caution.
He crossed the threshold and let out a frightened squeak. Lights had flashed on. A photoelectric cell control? Blake was hazy about these things, but it could be. He looked over Lefty's shoulder into what was without doubt a sitting room. There were chairs, rugs, a table, ornaments on the walls. And the fact that there was a subtle difference about each one of those did not greatly concern him now. The main fact was that the room was empty and there was something in its perfect order which suggested that it had not been in use for some time. Heartened by this, Blake pushed past his awestruck companion.
The carpet underfoot was very soft, so yielding that Blake thought it closer to fur than any fiber. The chairs were barrel shaped, made of a light gray wood, each cushioned with a pad of silky fur. There were no lamps, the light came from a slender tube running about the four sides of the room at the join of wall and ceiling. Squares of opaque substance probably masked windows. Between these and over the long, fur-covered lounge were a series of masks hung like pictures. They were strikingly life-like, though Blake did not believe that they were meant as portraits. The eyes were exaggerated, set with gleaming stones in a flat, almost menacing, stare. Blake, after a single glance at them, preferred no closer study. If they were portraits he had no inclination to meet the originals. There were cruel curves to the mouths, promises of strange and evil knowledge in the staring eyes.
Along the full length of one wall was a case holding books, books encased in the same gray wood as formed the furniture. To his left were two other doors, both open.
Lefty, seeing that Blake had come to no harm, now sidled farther in. He stared about him as if the oddness of the place made an impression.
"Geeze—" was his acceptance of what he saw. "Some joint!"
He drew a finger across the cushion of the nearest chair. "Whatta yuh know—fur! And why all them faces plastered up on th' wall? This guy must be a headhunter!" He started to laugh at his own flight of imagination but the laughter died away as he took a second look at the masks.
"This sure is a screwy joint. I don't get it."
There was no sound from the other rooms. Surely if the apartment was inhabited they would have roused someone. But the feeling that the suite was deserted persisted, and his own private warning system gave him no hint of danger.
Blake went into the next room. Again lights flashed as he crossed the threshold, and he saw he was in a bedroom. The bed was low and wide, built into a corner, bunk fashion. One of the soft carpets—this time pure white—covered the floor. And the bed was spread with an embroidered cover glowing with color, sparks of gemlight reflected from points in the pattern. A chest of ebony wood inlaid with a design of leaves in red and gold was against one wall and above it hung a silvery mirror.
Catching sight of his grimy, disreputable self in that mirror, Blake was more than ever glad he had not blundered in upon a native. But the room was empty and again he had the undefinable feeling that it had been so for days.
"Geeze—" Lefty paid his favorite tribute.'"Class, real class! Big John's dump ain't like this. Real class!"
The artist in Blake longed to examine the jewel-sewn cover, and all the rest of the treasures, but there was no time; to linger was foolish. They must get back to the laboratory and make an effort with the carrier even if it meant a return to the cellar where Scappa had imprisoned them. Something in the very air here suggested that Scappa, as bad as he was, might not be the greatest peril one could encounter along the worlds-traveling route. The masks had shaken Blake more than he cared to admit even to himself.
"We better get back—" he was beginning.
"Back where?" Lefty wanted to know. "Sure; I know we gotta get outta here."
Whether Blake could have carried his point about return to the carrier he was never to know, for at that moment there was a subdued chime, the first sound they had yet heard.
On the wall by the hall door was a round plate, resembling a porthole in a ship's cabin. But this was no longer dull gray. Three flashes from it riveted their attention. Lefty, with a cry close to a scream, simply turned and ran blindly out into the hall as a pattern began to form on the disc.
Blake stood his ground. There were lines of script—totally unfamiliar. And yet he felt they were allied to something he had once seen—that somewhere he had glanced over pothooks not unlike them. He roused from his study just in time to see the hall door close, sealing him in and Lefty out. He jumped for it, but there was a sharp click and for all his pushing it remained sealed.
Daringly he hammered on its surface, calling upon Lefty to release the catch by stepping in front. But, if the little man was still in the hall, he made no move, and the door continued to withstand Blake's efforts.
By the time he accepted the fact that he was now a prisoner, the message plate had gone dead. And he was very sure he could not depend upon Lefty to free him. He had been all wrong in keeping the full meaning of their journey from the other. Lefty wanted to get out of the building. Suppose he did leave—he would be an object of suspicion to the first native of this level whom he met. And the farther Lefty strayed from the laboratory, the more certain was their capture.