“Can’t hurt,” Gene said.
“Just give him this card. Okay?”
“Can’t hurt.”
“Huh?”
When he emerged from the lobby of the office building into the wilting August sun. Gene saw that his blue VW bug was in process of being ticketed and towed away. He sprinted across the street, talked the cop out of following through with the tow, and settled for the twenty-five-dollar ticket. Then he got in, fired up the Bug and drove away. Thinking that he might as well spring for the two bucks or whatever it was for the underground facility at the USX building — couldn’t afford the risk of another whopping fine — he turned up Forbes Avenue, then hung a right on Grant Street, there to bump along the cobblestones, threading his way through the almost-rush-hour traffic. The USX building hove into view as he approached the intersection of Bigelow Boulevard. It was an immense, peculiar-looking edifice of reticulated surfaces and myriad small windows. It was the exact color of rust, this so because of the special steel of its exposed frame (expressive of its organic structure, don’t you know), a remarkable alloy designed specifically to accrete a protective layer of oxidation on its surface, but no deeper.
Gene saw USXPARKING and turned in, traversed a narrow roadway that skirted the edge of an expansive plaza, and plunged into the mouth of a tunnel that spiraled down into the bowels of the underground lot.
The first level was full, as was the second and the third. So was the forth. There, he chanced across an attendant removing barriers blocking a ramp descending to still lower depths. He leaned out of the window.
“Hey! How far down does it go?”
“Got me, I just started today. Go ahead down. Plenty of room.”
“Can’t hurt.”
“What?”
Reaching the fifth level, he felt a wild hair at his fundamental aperture and decided, what the hell, let’s see how far down it does go.
Two more sub-sub-basements down. Gene was amazed. The place was vast, tomblike in its silence. Gene picked an arbitrary slot marked by parallel yellow lines and pulled in. With the motor off, the stillness fell like the lid of a sarcophagus.
Now I know. Gene thought, where to run when the balloon goes up, as the boys at the Pentagon are wont to say.
He locked the car and struck out into the dimness of the reinforced concrete cavern, looking for a way up, his footsteps echoing hollowly. He couldn’t find a sign. Coming to the mouth of the ramp, he looked up, saw it was a long way to walk — dangerous too — and decided there must be a stairwell, or better yet, an elevator around somewhere.
He searched in vain. He did find a featureless corridor which met another at a T. To his right the way was dark, so he turned left, turned again at an L, and found himself back in the concrete-walled silence of the garage again. Sighing, he retraced his steps, passed the intersection of the first corridor and continued on into the darkness. Feeling his way, he went about thirty paces until he bumped into a wall. The passageway turned to the right, still unlighted, and continued interminably.
“Absolutely ridiculous.”
Another turn, and there was light up ahead. Gene could see a stairwell.
“Now we are getting somewhere.”
Once into the light, coming from a strange fixture mounted on the wall at about eye level, he noticed that walls of the corridor were now of masonry, meticulously executed, with dark stones set in intricate patterns. The stone itself was dark gray in color, spangled with tiny glowing flecks of red, blue, and green. Then he noticed the light fixture. It looked more or less like a torch, a long wooden handle mounted into a bracket affixed to the stone, but at the top of the handle there was a glowing bulb shaped like a faceted jewel. The light it emitted was bright and of a faintly bluish cast.
“USX’s medieval period, I guess.”
He mounted the stairwell, which turned to the left, then to the right, and came out into another passageway identical to the one below, complete with the odd light fixture and another stairwell set into the opposite wall.
Four stories up he began to wonder what the hell was going on. This could not be … no, categorically impossible … could not be the USX building. Where the hell was he?
As he thought it over, sounds came from his right. He listened. A low rumbling, then … a scream? He walked on down the passageway toward the noise, coming to the pool of light cast by the next jewel-torch. Farther down, another corridor intersected. The sounds came from the branch to the right. He approached the corner.
What he heard next made him drop his attaché case. It was the full-throated yowl of some hell-spawned behemoth, the thunder of its rage shivering the stones around him. He backed away. He heard another scream. From the adjoining corridor came the sound of running feet, advancing toward him.
Bursting around the corner came a man in full flight. He came right at Gene, saw him, yelped, danced around him and ran on into the shadows.
“Hey!” Gene yelled after him. “Hey, buddy!”
He was gone. Gene picked up his briefcase and trotted after him for a few steps, then stopped. He scratched his head. The man had been dressed strangely.
The horrific noise sounded again, much nearer. Gene took a few more paces in pursuit but stopped again, unsure of what to do. He looked back toward the intersecting passageway.
What came running around the corner this time froze him solid to the floor.
It was large, maybe seven, eight feet, walked on two legs, and was covered head to foot with silky white fur. Oh, and the head. The head was smallish, but the mouth was not, agleam with razor-edged teeth and curved three-inch fangs. Bone-white claws tipped its fingers. Its shoulders were almost as broad as the beast was tall, and from them hung long sinewy arms. But with all that bulk, it was fast. And it was coming toward him.
Somewhere within Gene’s mind, a part that had not as yet turned the consistency of Cream of Wheat, he was thinking,Movie,they ’re filming a movie.Oh,yes,that ’s what it is.
As the beast neared, the glow from the jewel-torch fired its eyes, luminescent yellow agates. An alien intelligence burned within them, fierce, cruel, and inhuman.
The sound of the hell-beast shook the passageway.
But the white-furred thing ran right past him — and as it went by, it spoke.
It said, “Run, you fool!”
Inner Palisade — South-Southeast Tower
The voice spoke to him as he lay in meditation in the Hall of Contemplative Aspects, a grouping of adjacent rooms at various intervals along the curving wall of the tower. In each room there was a wide unglazed window reaching almost from floor to ceiling.
He reclined on a couch set back a short distance from the window, head propped on an arm. About him, the room was a seraglio of painted screens, velvet cushions, wicker baskets, luxurious carpets, low settees. Here and about were inlaid tables upon which lay assortments of finely crafted objects — brass oil lamps, rosewood boxes, carved tusks, scented candles, incense burners, and other curios. Tapestries and decorative rugs draped the walls. Scents of exotic perfumes hung discreetly in the air.
Outside the window, two moons — one larger and of a pale blue color, the other bronze tending toward gold — were becalmed above a quiet sea, its waters a-dance with fingers of moonlight. Sparkling combers washed a narrow beach, above which lay a town of white stone buildings topped with domes, minarets, and campaniles. Above, the night was starry. Glowing filaments of nebulous gas stretched across the firmament. Faint sounds of exotic music arose from the town, and here and there among the buildings, festival lights could be seen. Tall broad-leafed trees stirred in the salt breeze.