“Well, ‘fifth dimension’ doesn’t really mean anything. Neither does ‘alternate world,’ to my way of thinking. Actually, the word alternate means ‘every other one,’ so it should be ‘alternative world,’ if you want to get semantically fussy.” Gene thought about it. “No,alternative really means a choice between two things, so … Hell, what would the proper word be?”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Doesn’t matter. Damn. How about ‘optional metrical frame’?”
“Anything you say.”
“ ‘Option frame’ for short. Yeah, I like that. This is one of many option frames.”
“Kvaas ejarnak kevak bo nera?” Snowclaw growled.
Linda answered, “We were talking about where this place could be, Snowclaw, and Gene was saying that —”
Linda stopped in her tracks and looked stunned.
“Hey,” Gene said. “I understood him, too, a little. Wasn’t what he said something like, ‘What are you people jabbering about?’ ”
“Yeah, that’s what I understood too.”
“Snowclaw, raise your right arm.”
Snowclaw shrugged and did so.
“Wave it.”
Snowclaw smiled and waved. “Vo keslat.”
“Yeah, you look silly too. I’ll be damned. It’s not like back in the castle, but … Snowclaw, can you understand us?”
Snowclaw nodded and made a gesture that qualified the affirmative to,More or less.
They walked on.
“Give me some time to think about this,” Gene said. He took some time, then said, “I think we didn’t understand him at first because we were so surprised, though we shouldn’t have been. Now that I remember, I sort of got his meaning then.”
“I think I did too.”
“Can’t figure it out, though.”
They came to another clearing, this one wider and looking completely different. Neatly trimmed grass grew along a spacious corridor running between walls of trees, and to the right lay an oval patch of grass that was a darker green and looked even more manicured. A thin pole with a flag was planted in the middle of it.
Gene began, “Of all the —”
“Fore!”
A small white ball thumped into the turf a few feet from Gene, hit his right arm, and bounded away to roll into the expansive sand trap in front of the green.
“Ow,” Gene complained, rubbing his arm. “What the hell?”
Moments later Thaxton, whom Gene recognized from the dining hall, came running over a rise a few yards down the fairway. He looked peeved.
“I say,” he shouted, “would you mind awfully getting out of the bloody way?”
“Sorry,” Gene told him.
“If you hadn’t been standing there, I’d be putting for an eagle. Now I’m in a bloody hazard! Blast it all.”
Thaxton stalked by and gave Gene a grouchy look.
“Excu-u-u-se me,” Gene said, and backed away toward his companions.
Thaxton waited off to one side of the green. Another ball shot over the rise, arching down to hit the lip of the trap. It bounced cleanly, lobbed onto the green, rolled, bounded off the pin and came to rest a few feet from the cup.
“Oh, bloody hell!” Thaxton despaired. “Of all the bleeding luck!” Grumbling, he sat down on the edge of the bunker.
A few moments later Cleve Dalton came sauntering over the rise.
“Hello there!”
He came down to where Gene and company were standing.
“Sorry to interrupt your game,” Gene told him.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Dalton said amiably. “I heard Thaxton giving you a hard time. Don’t pay him any mind.”
“Mind telling me what a golf course is doing in the middle of the Jurassic?”
“Is that what this is?” Dalton smiled. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, it’s close. We were hoping that this is one of the more stable aspects.”
“It is. Very stable — at least it has been for the three years I’ve been a Guest.”
“Good. Then we can get back to the castle.”
“Easily, as long as you don’t wander too far.”
“Fine. Now, about this course …”
“Nobody I know remembers when it was put in,” Dalton said. “It’s maintained by castle servants, though, so I imagine Incarnadine had it built for the delectation of his Guests.”
“Hmm. No kidding.”
“Rather glad he did, myself. Golf’s one of my passions.” He crossed his ankles, put the head of his seven-iron at his feet and leaned on the shaft. “In addition to good books and straight gin. The latter is my one vice.”
“Where the devil is that lummox of a caddy?” Thaxton griped. “Oh, to hell with it.”
He stood up, trudged over to the ball and addressed it.
“It’s like the bloody Sudan here,” he muttered. “You have to be bloody Chinese Gordon to play this course!”
His trap shot hit the lip of the bunker and bounced back into the sand. A bout of potent cursing ensued.
“There’s a lady present,” Dalton told him.
“Eh?” Thaxton looked, Linda’s gender hitting him. “Oh. Frightfully sorry. Do forgive me.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Linda called.
“It is a difficult course,” Dalton conceded. “Impossible to find a ball in the rough.”
“Yeah,” Gene said. “Is there anything else here besides the golf course?”
“No, except for a small clubhouse. Mostly lockers and things. It does have a bar, however.”
“Hm. No civilization, then. Rats.”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say no civilization.…”
“There you are, you great bumbling twit!” Thaxton shouted to the strange figure coming over the rise. “I need my wedgie chop-chop!”
Linda’s hand shot up to cover her mouth.
The caddy, a green, seven-foot-tall saurian beast resembling a kangaroo, broke into a loping run. Spindly forelegs struggling with two golf bags and a plastic cooler, it ambled down the grade, dropped one of the bags, back-tracked and bent to pick it up, and in so doing, emptied the other bag of its clubs.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
After some effort and a few more mishaps, the caddy finally arrived at the green, dumped its burdens, fetched one of the bags back up, and frantically rummaged through it.
Thaxton looked on, scowling. Losing patience, he barked, “The wedgie, the wedgie! No, no, no, not that one, for God’s sake. Yes, that one. Yes! Can’t you bloody hear? Right, now give it to me.”
“Is that thing intelligent?” Gene asked in wonder.
“Not bloody likely,” Thaxton answered, striking out into the endless wastes of the sand trap.
“I mean, is it sentient?” Gene amended.
“Oh, yes, very,” Dalton said. “This one’s not the best of the caddies, but he tries. They all belong to a local tribe.”
“Tribe? Wow.”
Dalton turned to the beast and said, “Lummox, old boy, could I trouble you for a drink?”
Lummox nodded and opened the cooler, which was filled with bottles and other containers nesting in shaved ice. He withdrew a small plastic pitcher, opened the spout on the cover, took out a long-stemmed frosted glass and filled it. Gene and Linda were amazed at how humanlike and dexterous the hands were. Bearing the glass and moving his huge feet carefully, Lummox walked over to where Dalton stood, but stopped just short.
His face, generally saurian but capable of much expression, suddenly developed a guilty look.
“O-live!” Lummox wailed apologetically.
“Never mind, old boy,” Dalton said mildly. “Give it here.”
“Damn!” Thaxton’s shot had wound up a goodly distance from the cup; the ball hugged the edge of the green. “It’ll be a good twenty feet for a bogey! Damn!” He trudged out of the sand. “Damn, damn, damn!”