Kenneth Bulmer - Keys to the Dimensions 03, page 2
“The flaming radio went on the blink!” Alec said indignantly.
Redfern sagged back. Alongside the wooden platform a small oval plate of some shining metal hung in midair. Set atop the central area were six seats with a glassed-in cover and a control podium at the front. From the miraculously supported plate hung the ladder. As he looked Redfern saw a small creature hop up into view and swing with incredible effortless overhand grips from hanging branches and vines to alight with a bent-knee crouch on the platform.
“The Trug went into a Snapper Orchid,” he said with evident satisfaction.
Redfern gaped at him. His body was barely four feet from head to toes; but each arm must have been all of the same length. As he crouched he wrapped his arms about him in a fantastic winding motion. He was dressed in a brown and green camouflage jacket, and a yellow breechclout. Gold studs glinted on a belt around his waist and from the belt hung a Colt forty-five in a holster, a machete in a wicker scabbard, and a high-quality Kodak thirty-five millimeter still camera. His face, like that of a debauched pug dog’s, all squashed nose and wrinkled lips and big shining eyes, twisted into a chuckle.
“You’re a blood-thirsty little devil, Moke,” said Macklin. But he looked relieved at the news.
“Is he… ?” Redfern said. “Is he real?”
Moke snorted a wheezing laugh of good-natured contempt. Sarah tittered. Alec, watching Redfern’s face, said, “Moke is as human as any human, only he’s a brachiating human—and highly intelligent and deadly in his own dimension. Don’t let him fool you—and don’t get into a game of craps with him.” He glared at Moke. “He cheats.”
“A fine friend you are, Alec. Now what chance do I have of making a quick buck?”
“And, as you’ll notice,” said Sarah, “he’s picked up a few snide Americanisms that he thinks make him a real—”
“Dimension,” said Redfern. “Dimension?”
“This world,” said Macklin, indicating the treetops and the forest and the intertwining branches, the blue sky and brilliant sunshine, “this dimension, parallel universe, other world, what someone used to call noncongruent reality until we pointed out that it—and all of the dimensions—are very congruent. Extremely so.”
“You’ll get used to it, Scobie,” said Sarah in her soft voice. “But you and Alec were lucky we managed to pick up enough of a fix on Alec’s radio to pinpoint you. We nipped through the Portal, picked you up and then nipped back—”
“Trug and all,” said Alec grimly.
“And,” offered Macklin as though commenting on the state of the weather, “the Contessa will rapidly discover that Gate and she’ll be through—or one of her alter egos will—muy pronto.”
“So?”
“So we have to move. I fancy none of us wishes another close introduction to her Trugs.”
Shivering in the hot sunshine, Redfern gave a vehement “No!”
Then, as though in some way breaking through an impalpable barrier of unbelief, he said, “But where is this?”
“There are many dimensions,” said David Macklin. He stepped onto the floating oval and settled in one of the seats. The others followed, Redfern with a little jolt of apprehension as he stepped from the platform onto the swaying oval plate, and Alec went automatically to the control console.
“This is a skimmer,” Alec said, glancing at Redfern. “Comes from a parallel world called Altinum. Nice place…”
“But here!”
Macklin chuckled as Alec sent the skimmer smoothly away from the giant trees and over the mat of branches and leaves intertwined below. Above them the blue sky shone with heat and Redfern loosened his collar, his overcoat already discarded in an untidy heap at his feet.
“This is Moke’s home world. His people live pretty comfortably among the trees. Place called Myrcinus, although we know only this island, which is about as large as Australia. There are Gateways—Portals—between the dimensions; and if you have the key”—he glanced fondly at Sarah —”why, then, you can travel between the worlds.”
“I’m a Porteur, Scobie,” said Sarah. “Sometimes it’s a curse; but mostly it’s a kind of extra privilege for being alive.”
Slowly, Redfern said, “It’s unbelievable; but I have to believe because a moment ago I was in New York in the snow and now I’m here, skimming over a forest, in the sunshine.” He squinted up his eyes. “That’s an improvement, anyway.”
“That’s more like it, Scobie,” growled Alec jovially.
“Unfortunately,” Macklin went on. “Our little scheme for discomfitting the Contessa misfired. Now we have to get back to Earth through another Portal, one of our regular ones, and think again. You were lucky, Alec.”
Alec snorted. “I left Tom nicely set up and he should be all right.”
“Oh, I hope so!” said Sarah, on a little gasp.
“Contessa,” said Redfern. “You mentioned the name before. Who—”
They all started to speak, then stopped to let David Macklin say with heavy emphasis: “The Contessa Perdita Francesca Cammachia di Montevarchi. It would be a solecism to call her a—”
“—a bitch!” flashed Sarah.
“—but she is a very dangerous woman. She runs most of a dimension called Irunium, and a lot else besides, and between us there is no love lost.” He paused as he said that and shook his head, then finished: “Be very careful if you have any dealings with her, Scobie, which I sincerely trust you never will.”
“She possesses unholy charm, and power, and a host of willing and unwilling tools and agents and slaves. The Trugs you have already met.” Alec shot the skimmer in a long, swerving curve to avoid a taller growth protruding from the forest. A few birds plummeted away to the side. “There are her Honshi guards, hissing devils, and her personal bargemen, and the poor creatures she keeps slaving for her in her jewel mines. You keep clear of the Montevarchi, Scobie.”
This packet of information might have bemused Redfern, but he clearly saw that everything he could learn would be vital to him if he was to stay not only alive but sane in these strange dimensions. He believed it all, now. He’d be a blind fool to do otherwise. Every name, every fact, must be carefully stored away in his mind.
Producing a map of New York city, Macklin studied it, concentrating. Redfern saw the familiar blocks and streets and avenues with a pang. Scattered across the map, small red crosses winked in the sunshine.
“Here, I think, Sarah,” Macklin said, shoving the map across to the girl, his manicured fingernail indicating a red cross in the West Seventies area.
She nodded. “And Moke can take the skimmer back home.”
Moke chirruped and went back to tossing a couple of dice in his incredibly muscled hands. His body was covered with a very fine fur of a reddish-brown tint, like a red squirrel’s. He seemed to be enjoying the ride.
“Yes.” Alec nodded. “Give my love to Miff.”
“She’ll be glad to see you home safe and sound,” Sarah said, a little wistfully.
Macklin looked up from the map and smiled. “Fezius will be all right, Sarah. Nothing can hurt that little bundle of energy.”
“I know. At least, I think I do. But he’s been gone a long time, and Offa said—”
“—Offa and Fezius couldn’t be beaten by a regiment, and well you know it. Now concentrate on smelling out that Portal. I need a drink.”
Redfern realized that these people had picked him up in the middle of some great scheme. He liked them. He liked the way they handled themselves. He led a lonely life marooned in New York, both his parents still insisting on staying in Cross Plains, and his own wandering succession of jobs had made him no permanent friends. He felt the stirrings of wonder that perhaps he had at last found people with whom he could feel friendly on a basis other than self-interest.
He had had one or two girls in his short lovelife, but he remained acutely aware that he wasn’t prepared for any girl to dictate to him. When he married—if he married—he would do so of his own volition. No girl could expose her charms and throw herself at him and expect a meal ticket for the rest of her life; not from Scobie Redfern.
Suddenly, breaking into his train of thought, Sarah sat up as though goosed.
“They’re near!” she exclaimed.
At once an air of taut expectancy engulfed them all. Redfern, not knowing what was going on or what to expect, felt exposed and alone. Alec kept his left hand on the controls and with his right took out his automatic. He had reloaded back on the platform. Moke, too, drew his gun. They looked about in the bright sunshine.
The skimmer swerved to avoid another upflung clump of trees. As they skidded around the waving greenery another skimmer leaped from the shadows. Larger than their own and with plating in place of a glass canopy, the floating oval looked somehow menacing to Redfern.
Alec shouted and sent the skimmer headlong for the shelter of the trees.
Moke began shooting back, holding the gun in both hands.
From orifices in the metal walling of the pursuing skimmer a bright pink light glowed in stuttering bursts. That pink radiance spiraled across the gap, passed just above them as Alec forced their skimmer down toward the trees below. Redfern smelled a skin-chilling aroma of burning wool. He gagged.
“It’s the Montevarchi’s hellions, all right,” growled Alec. He flung the skimmer about the sky. Between the bursts of spiraling pink destruction they plummeted for the trees.
“Thank your lucky stars they’re not Porvone!” Macklin yelled, holding onto his seat, the map tucked between his knees, his floppy hat jammed over his forehead. “At least the Contessa isn’t as bad as them!”
They were going to make shelter. The branches and leaves leaped up at them. Then a pink glow burst about the rear of the skimmer. It jolted as though struck by an antitank shell. It turned over.
Redfern glimpsed the thick tree branch smashing up at him. He put out both hands in panic reaction. The branch swept in like an ogre’s club. He hit—and blacked out.
III
A foot kicked him in the ribs and he knew the whole mad episode had not been a dream.
He groaned. His head hurt all down one side where he’d smashed into the branch and when he put his hand up it touched dried blood. The foot kicked again. He sat up and tried to unglue his eyes. He felt awful. Now his whole head ached, and his body, too, and his mouth tasted as though he’d just gone through a full extraction.
“Get up and get in line!”
The voice sounded sibilant, menacing, unpleasant.
This time Scobie Redfern got his eyes open and stared blearily at the legs and feet that had been kicking him. They were standing on a tiled floor and he caught the scrape and hum of other people all about; but his vision blurred at the edges. The right foot lifted again. The shoes were dark tan and particolored cream, vulgar and ugly.
Redfern grabbed the foot as it swept in and pulled.
He jerked a man’s body down on top of him. He reached around and sank his fist into something soft and heard a foul Neapolitan oath; then, for the second time, a hard and unyielding length of wood laid itself alongside his head and he blacked out.
When he came around again he lay in darkness on a foul-smelling bed of straw. As he groaned and tried to move a man’s hand steadied his shoulder and a voice, speaking English with an odd semi-Italian accent, said, “Hold steady. Take your time.”
A water pannikin touched his lips with a grateful chill and he drank deeply. The water tasted of iron. Then he fell back again, into the darkness, this time to sleep more naturally. He woke twice more after that and was vaguely aware of being sick. Then it was lighter, with a wan sunbeam falling through a high grated window onto a stone cell, straw beds, and four men, hard-faced, who stared down> at him with expressions he could not understand.
“You’ll be all right now. We washed your head.”
He groaned. “Water—” he managed to croak out.
He drank from the pannikin again. The iron taste was more pronounced. Then he realized he wore only a pair of gray shorts. He pushed the water away and drops fell over his bare chest.
“What… ?” he said. His tongue felt overlarge. “Where… ?”
“The Honshi threw you in here. We took your clothes off—they stank. Rest up. Breakfast will be here soon. Then you’ll work with us.”
The man who spoke, dark-faced, haggard, with a wild shock of black hair, seemed on edge. He kept looking at the barred and grilled door of stained wood set between crude stone architraves. Outside the door and muffled by its thickness, the sound of people moving, of horses, or machinery, brought a sense of the mysterious, the fearful, to Redfern.
Where the hell was he, anyway?
“Alec?” he asked. “Macklin?”
“The Valcini picked you up in some dimension or other and brought you here. You’re working for the Contessa now.”
He slumped back.
Working for the Contessa!
After all his newly found friends of the dimensions had told him! He knew with a deep and terrible fear that he was in deadly trouble—trouble he might never escape from for the rest of his life. For, of course, he guessed what had happened.
“Only me?” he croaked. “No one else?”
“No one.”
Breakfast was brought by a fearful half-naked girl with wicked eyes and matted hair and dirty feet. She spat as one of the men tried to grab her playfully, and kicked him in the stomach. He doubled up, laughing and gagging at the same time. Breakfast was porridge and bread. Surprising himself, Redfern ate hungrily. Someone had washed his wounded head carefully and after a time the ache muted to a bearable level. Soon after that the Honshi came for them.
Hustled out, Redfern cringed from the guards.
The Honshi shoving him forward was not human. Five feet six inches tall and standing on squat bent legs, the thing possessed a face like a frog’s, with widely spaced eyes and flat wedge-shaped cheeks, gray and yellow, with a lick of blue about the chops. He wore reddish armor and a tall conical helmet from the tip of which floated a string with three or four scraps of hair attached. They meant nothing to Redfern. He scrambled along, prodded by a sharp spear-point.
Other Honshi guards were shepherding other men and women along. Most of them wore gray tunics or gray shirts and trousers. Through stone corridors they went, gradually going deeper, until the air clung dankly about them.
When at last they reached a square chamber cut from the rock the men and women, quite naturally, began to strip off their clothes. At an ungentle prod from a Honshi, Redfern took off his shorts. No one took any notice of him. The Honshi loosened their armor, then went forward to stand carefully over the men and women as an old man with scant white hair handed out pickaxes and shovels. Redfern took a pickax and hefted it.
A girl—a slip of a thing with livid weals scoring her yellow flanks and a crop of black hair—saw him and shook her head.
A Honshi guard half-drew his leaf-shaped sword.
Redfern swallowed and lowered the pick.
That was the beginning of a term of hard labor during which he discovered muscles the Canadian mining camp had overlooked, and grew and regrew the skin on the palms of his hands. His back ached. He shone with sweat. His head buzzed. For what seemed a very long time he hacked at the walls and roof, bringing down showers of rock and glinting shards of crystal, which were immediately swept up by the shovelers into wicker baskets to be taken away on the backs of sweating girls. About every hour or so they halted for a ten minute breather and a waterskin was passed around, the thick iron-tasting water like nectar.
The first day passed. He slept like a drugged man in the cell. The second day passed. And the third. A week went by. Now he could swing the pick with more skill and less effort. But the never-ending labor went on and on and on. He saw at least six men and women fall and be dragged out by the ankles.
On shift no one had the breath or spirit to talk much. Mere grunts to exchange orders or information were all he came by. In the cell the men slept and then talked desultorily. They came from different dimensions and all spoke either Italian or English.
Once a nattily-dressed man in fawn slacks and shirt, with two-tone shoes, came down to see how they were getting on. His dark hair shone sleekly in the strung lights.
Obo, the man who had washed Redfern’s head and who seemed to have more spirit left than the others, grunted a hard, hating word: “Valcini!”
The labor went on. Now Redfern understood they were digging out gems. A fantastic pipe of diamonds lay in the rocky ground. They would spend years before they scratched the surface of it. And the labor continued.
Then, one incredible day, after shift, Obo said gruffly: “We are going to escape. A few of us. We need men who are strong and who have not lost their spirit. Will you join us?”
Redfern’s first reaction was one of absolute astonishment. Escape? The thought had hardly left his mind; but he had seen no way at all to implement it.
He nodded. “Of course. And I’ll kill a Honshi—or a Valcini—if I have to.”
Obo’s thick lips writhed in a rictus of a smile.
“Tomorrow, then. Tony has found his Porteur. There are others: Gait, Carlo, Nyllee. They have provisions and guns.”
“Guns! Well…” For all his boastful words, the impact of guns and what he had said unsettled Redfern. He’d never had much time for soldiers, and guns had always seemed offensive. Even Alec and his forty-five had somehow failed to change Redfern’s attitude. But he could target-shoot, liked firing off an air rifle, in fact…
The others in the cell scarcely bothered to look at Redfern and Obo. Their spirit had been crushed. Redfern thought of the punishments he had seen meted out, uncaring beating, kickings, men and women hounded to death. Yes, these people who were escaping would be very special people.
Next morning after breakfast when the Honshi guard came for them Obo gave the signal. Redfern leaped to the thing’s back and clamped his arms about its neck. He felt the thing’s harsh skin and repugnance welled in him. It stank. Then Obo had seized the Honshi’s spear and driven hard into its belly. The body slumped to the floor. The others in the cell began crying and waving their arms, panic-stricken.
