“Gene does have a key to the place. He could have — anyway it’s a possibility.”
“That means he could have disappeared inside the castle. By accident, I suppose. But as Gene’s a castle veteran, more likely by design.”
“But again the question is ‘Who?’”
“Well, let’s go over the disappearance once again. You say Gene did board the plane in L.A.?”
“Yes, as far as the airline knows.”
“Was anyone supposed to meet him at the airport?”
“Linda’s not sure, but she thinks Gene told her that his dad was supposed to pick him up.”
“And you can’t reach his parents?”
“No, though I should try again from here. Or maybe when we switch the portal back to Halfway, I’ll take a drive into Pittsburgh and see if I can’t find them. We were afraid of doing that, causing them worry, but now I think we might have to.”
Trent nodded. “It might be the only way.” He thought for a moment. “Did it ever occur to you that Gene might have boarded the plane but never got off?”
“No, it never occurred to me. How —?” Sheila frowned. “Wouldn’t the flight crew have wondered what happened to him?”
“Maybe. When they came up one short on the deplaning nose count, they would have searched the plane. When they didn’t find him, they might have figured they just counted wrong. It happens.”
Sheila chewed her lip, then said, “So you think somebody meddled with the portal and had it link with the plane … in midflight?”
“Why not? It’s not easy to do, but it’s doable. Happen to know what kind of plane it was?”
“No, not really, but I guess we can find out. Wouldn’t somebody have seen what was going on?”
“If it was a 747 or an L-1011, there’d be no end of room to materialize a portal. I’d do it in the head, myself. Perfect place.”
“But why go to all that trouble?”
“To confuse things, keep you guessing,” Trent said. “I admit it’s a wild possibility. But if true, it means that the portal was meddled with from the castle side, unless someone was on the plane to manipulate things from that end. I guess that’s a possibility as well. Are you keeping a list?”
Sheila shook her head glumly. “There are too many of them. I wonder if we’ll ever know what happened to Gene.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll find him.”
“But it’s been almost four days.”
“Not to worry. There are any number of universes, and he could be anywhere in any one of them. It’ll take time, but we’ll locate him.”
“You’re so kind to help, Trent.”
“Glad to. I rather like Gene, myself. A good kid, handy with a sword.”
Sheila rose. “We’ve taken enough of your time.”
Trent threw out his arms expansively. “I have all the time in the world. In semiretirement, you know. Out to pasture.”
“You don’t look your age, whatever that is.”
“I’ll never tell. But thanks for saying it. We old codgers need all the compliments we can wheedle out of pretty young ladies.”
Sheila blushed again. “Anyway, thanks for your time.”
“Certainly. And I’ll let you know as soon as I come up with a locator spell. It shouldn’t take long to design, but getting the bugs out of the thing is going to be the real problem.”
Trent escorted Sheila and Snowclaw back to the dining room, where the upright rectangle of the portal stood. Trent had summoned it, detaching the Earth end from its Pennsylvania mooring and anchoring it here, inside Trent’s sumptuous Long Island estate.
“Good thing you picked today to come,” Trent said. “My housekeeper’s day off. Otherwise you would’ve had to travel here the old-fashioned way. I’m afraid she wouldn’t have understood having magic casements in the dining room.”
“This is the only way to travel,” Snowclaw said, then changed expressions. He sniffed the air. “Hey, what’s that smell?”
Trent said, “Smell?”
“Yeah, something mighty good in here.” Snowy bent and sniffed the huge oak dining table. “Something that was on this table. Smell’s Just like jhalnark. Now,that’s a drink.”
“I think you’re smelling furniture polish. Linseed oil, or something. The cleaning people were here yesterday. If I’d known, I would’ve offered …”
Trent broke off and moved to the far wall, against which stood a long, ornately carved sideboard. He opened the bottom drawer, searched among some bottles, and came up with one. “In fact, here’s the very stuff, Hornby’s furniture cleaner. Never let it be said I’m not an accommodating host. Take it with you.” He handed the bottle to Snowclaw.
Sheila squealed with laughter, and was about to add a sarcastic comment when she caught sight of someone on the castle side of the portal. It was one of the servants, a young page, although she didn’t recognize him.
“Yes, what is it?” she asked.
“Begging your pardon, milady, but Lord Incarnadine has returned, and he requests you see him immediately.”
“Great! C’mon, Snowy.” Sheila stepped through, but stopped suddenly and looked around.
“Be with you in a sec,” Snowclaw said as he tilted the bottle of furniture polish to his lips. He took a deep drink.
Sheila said, “Hey, wait a minute. Where are we?”
Still on the Earth side, Trent edged toward the aperture. “What’s wrong, Sheila?”
“This isn’t where the portal is usually anchored in the castle.” She took a step toward the servant. “What’s going on?”
“I wouldn’t know, milady,” the page said, backing off.
“What’s wrong?” Sheila said, puzzled by the young man’s behavior.
Trent saw the wall sliding down. He dashed through the portal.
“Sheila, get back! It’s a trap!”
Snowclaw dropped the bottle and leaped toward the portal, but neither he nor the prince had acted in time. The barrier slammed down, and the portal closed.
Snowclaw was stranded on Earth.
Eleven
Library
“Wow, there’re a lot of books in here,” Jeremy whispered, gazing about.
“This is a library, young man,” Osmirik said airily, but remembering his own reaction the first time he set foot in the place. He had been nothing less than astonished.
“It’s so big.”
“Please set your machine here,” Osmirik directed, having chosen a table in the middle of the main floor, near the open stacks. “If you’ll set it to working, I have some books to fetch.”
Osmirik disappeared into the stacks.
“Take your time,” Jeremy called after him, opening the computer’s case and flipping up the readout screen.
While waiting, Jeremy gazed upward. There were three levels to the place, a spacious main floor and two galleries, spiral stairwells communicating between them. The roof was a ballet of Gothic stone arches, soaring together to form complex vaults and geometric sections. And everywhere — books, shelves and shelves of books.
Osmirik returned, loaded down with three huge leather-bound tomes. He set the stack down, chose the top volume, and paged through it.
“I have some acquaintance with the alphabetical and numbering system of your world,” Osmirik said, “but I need a review. Would you be so kind as to —”
“Yeah, sure.” Jeremy punched a few keys. The readout screen came to life. “Here’s a list-out of all the alphanumeric symbols this computer can generate. ASCII Code. That what you want?”
“Oh, my, I had no idea there were so many.”
“Well, there’s all kinds of things that you rarely use here, except for special occasions. These lines here are what you want.”
“I see. Yes, I think the problem of translation can be solved eventually. But there are many other problems.”