"The hydra pouncing on you," Shea answered. "Now that it's over, I've just realized how close I came to losing you."
Belphebe turned and slipped into his arms.
After a few minutes, Chalmers coughed delicately.
Polacek looked back, saw how far behind his guests had fallen, and called out, "Hey, come on, you guys! Some things can wait, you know?"
"Not this one." Shea held Belphebe away, just far enough so that he could looked straight into her eves. "I nearly thought I'd lost you. It definitely makes me begin to think twice about doing any more adventuring."
"Oh, be not so rash," Belphebe said carelessly. Still holding his hand, she turned away to follow Polacek. "The life of the knight-errant stirs the blood, and makes life vivid."
"True, but it also makes it short," Shea returned. "I'm beginning to see distinct advantages to Ohio."
Polacek lived in a large house, for the time—it had two stories, and must have had all of six rooms. It also had a thick coating of dust on every horizontal surface, papers strewn all about, and dessicated snacks left sitting on tables and chairs.
"Sorry—it's been a few weeks since I've been home." Polacek started gathering up the detritus. "I can make tea, at least. It will take a little while, though, so make yourselves comfortable."
Belphebe looked around her, dazed, and Shea could tell she was fighting the impulse to wrinkle her nose. He wandered over to the hearth, gathered up kindling, and recited a small spark-spell. By the time Polacek came back in with a kettle of water, Shea had a nice fire going.
Polacek grunted as he hefted the little cauldron onto the swing-arm and pushed it over the flames. "Thanks, Harold. Not used to doing for myself, you see."
"Have you meal?" Belphebe asked.
"Yeah, sure, in the bin over there." Polacek pointed. "Cassie was keeping the place tidy, see, but when I said I was going to conjure up a hydra, and told her what it was, she walked out."
"Ran, I should think," Chalmers put in.
"Don't blame her," Polacek agreed. "Maybe now that it's dead, I can get her to come back."
"You have not married, then?" Belphebe brought over a pan with a meal-cake and set it on the hearth.
"We haven't formalized the arrangement, no. She was hinting at it at first, but she hasn't said much about it lately."
"I think that I can understand that," Belphebe murmured.
Polacek looked surprised, but had the good sense to let it pass.
Shea tried to clarify it. "Do all your experiments backfire the way that hydra did?"
Polacek frowned. "You think maybe that's why she hasn't been pushing for anything permanent?"
"It's a possibility," Shea said, and Belphebe just stared at her meal-cake. "Do they all turn into qualified disasters?"
"Not always qualified," Polacek said, with chagrin, "but not always disasters, either. Some of them work right the first time."
"How many?" Chalmers demanded.
Polacek shrugged. "Oh, twenty percent."
Shea automatically revised that down to ten. "Let me guess at a standard distribution curve. What's the center like?"
Polacek shrugged. "Most of them have been—well, I suppose you could say amusing ..."
"If you have a morbid sense of humor," Chalmers muttered.
"Okay, so maybe some of them turn out scary—but they aren't exactly lethal, either!"
Chalmers said, "Perhaps your efforts would meet with greater success if your motives were less personal."
"What's so bad trying to work out the magic-cum-physics of this universe in detail?"
"Nothing," said Chalmers, "if it were only from motives of pure, disinterested academic interest, or of attempting to cure mentally-ill people who are caught between universes. I suspect, however, that you are far more concerned with gaining greater magical power for yourself."
"Well—what's the matter with trying to get ahead in the world?" Polacek's jaw jutted in stubbornness. "Or several worlds, for that matter?"
"Nothing, so long as you do it by improving the lot of other people, or at least not injuring them. Your experiments, however, seem to be characterized by a total disregard of your neighbors' welfare. Certainly they have resulted in calamities that have damaged the property of a good number of people."
"But no lives," Polacek pointed out. "I haven't caused any accidents that have killed anybody—or even injured them ... Well, not much."
Chalmers threw up his hands and turned away.
Shea decided it was time for a politic change of subject. "Maybe you need a rest," he suggested, "a sojourn in a universe where magic doesn't work."
"Like our home one, eh?" Polacek's grin returned. "Not a bad idea, Harold. Settle down for a few months and collate all my results, look for correlations, make sense out of it ail and then come back here for more experimenting."
"Had your fill of magic for a while, eh?"
"Well—let's say it'll be a relief to go someplace where I don't have to worry about the moon turning blue if I sing the wrong song. Besides, I kinda miss some of the little stuff. I could really go for a dozen White Castle hamburgers and some cola. Moorish Spain is great in its way, but modern comforts would be nice for a while."
Shea breathed a sigh of relief—and, all things considered, he and Belphebe were very glad to be joining hands with Chalmers and Polacek, and reciting the sorites for Garaden, Ohio.
The mist boiled up around them, churned, cooled, thinned, dissipated—and they found themselves standing in the Sheas' living room. They released hands with a collective sigh, and Polacek crowed: "Home! A fireplace with a chimney! A broadloom carpet! An indoor bathroom!"
"A kitchen," Belphebe prompted.
"A liquor cabinet," Shea added.
"Hey, good idea! Wouldn't have any ice in the freezer, would you?"
"There should be a tray," Belphebe said.
"Scotch on the rocks! No, don't bother, Harold—I can find it!" And Polacek swirled into the kitchen in his wizard's robes, looking for a refrigerator.
"It almost seems alien, somehow," Chalmers looked about him with a fond smile. "But quite comforting, to see familiar artifacts."
"Good to have you back, Doc." Shea grinned. "Only, now I need your help with another many-headed monster."
"The Board of Trustees?" Chalmers smiled, amused. "An unkind metaphor, Harold, though perhaps an apt one. Well, give me a night's rest to re-acclimatize myself, and I shall be at your disposal."
"Harold will fetch clothes from your house tomorrow," Belphebe said. "For this night, though, will you not grace our new guest room?"
"I shall be delighted." Reed said, with a little bow to her. "However, Harold, might I trouble you for a shirt and slacks tonight? I find that I, too, would welcome a hamburger."
The Board was relieved to see Chalmers return, and Shea was very relieved, too—at first. Chalmers fielded the Board's questions with an easy grace, responding to their reservations about the project with improvisations that sounded as though they were the result of long study.
But after a while, his skill and persuasion began to seem too good, and Shea thought that Chalmers was enjoying the central role a little too much.
"You will oversee the organization of the project, then, Dr. Chalmers, and will establish the methodology?" Archangle asked.
"Certainly," Chalmers said, without an instant's hesitation. "I was present at the inception of the study, of course—Dr. Shea brought his findings to me as soon as he had some validation for the hypothesis, and we embarked on a pilot project together."
Shea managed to contain a smile; the Board certainly had no idea just how literally he and Chalmers had "embarked."
"Dr. Shea and I proceeded to work out the basic methodology as we prepared a second project," Chalmers went on, "and brought Dr. Bayard and Mr. Polacek into the study; so as you can see, gentlemen, I have overseen the organization of the project from its inception, and have already approved the methodology."