“Well, as May turned into June and June went by, Keena got more and more confident of her eventual rescue. As I learned more about her world, I got confident of it too. In a few thousand years we may be as bright as those people. I hope we are. No wars, no disease.
“And the longer she stayed with me, the more upset I got about her leaving me. But it was what she wanted. I guess it’s what I’d want, if somebody shoved me back a thousand years B.C. I’d want to get home, but quick.
“On the tenth of July, I got a phone call from Jim Finch. His voice was all quavery like a little old lady. He said, ‘Maloney, I want to give that thing back to you. Right away.’ Anything Jim Finch gave anybody was a spavined gift horse. I guessed that the gobblies were after him like Keena had hinted.
“So I just laughed at him. Maybe I laughed to cover up the fact that I was a little scared, too. What if some world he messed with dropped a future type atomic bomb back through the gawk into his lap? I told him to burn it up if he was tired of it.
“I didn’t know Jim could cuss like that. He said that it wouldn’t burn and he couldn’t break it or destroy it anyway. He said that he was coming out and throw it across the hedge into my yard right away.
“As I got to my front door, he came running out of his house. He carried the thing like it was going to blow up.
“Just as he got to the hedge, I saw a misty circle in the air over his head. Only it was about ten feet across. A pair of dark blue shiny pliers with jaws as big as the judge’s desk there swooped down and caught him by the head. The jaws snapped shut so hard that I could hear sort of a thick, wet, popping sound as all the bones in old Jim’s head gave way all at once.
“He dropped the gawk and hung limp in those closed jaws for a moment, then he was yanked up through that misty circle into nothingness. Gone. Right before my eyes. The misty circle drifted down to grass level, and then faded away. The gawk faded right away with it. You know what it made me think of? Of a picnic where you’re trying to eat and a bug gets on your arm and bothers you. You pinch it between your thumb and forefinger, roll it once and throw it away. Old Jim was just about as important to those blue steel jaws as a hungry red ant is to you or me. You could call those gems he got crumbs, I guess.
“I was just getting over being sick in my own front yard when Timmy came running over, took one look at the blood and ran back. The police came next. That’s all there is to tell. Keena is still around and Justy will bring her in to testify tomorrow.”
Bill Maloney yawned and smiled at the jury.
Amery Heater got up, stuck his thumbs inside his belt and walked slowly and heavily over to Bill.
He stared into Bill’s smiling face for ten long seconds. Bill shuffled his feet and began to look uncomfortable.
In a low bitter tone, Amery Heater said, “Gawks! Golden scorpions! Tangential worlds! Blue jaws!” He sighed heavily, pointed to the jury and said, “Those are intelligent people, Maloney. No questions!”
The judge had to pound with his gavel to quiet the court. As soon as the room was quiet, he called an adjournment until ten the following morning.
When Bill Maloney was brought out of his cell into court the next morning, the jurors gave each other wise looks. It was obvious that the young man had spent a bad night. There were puffy areas under his eyes. He scuffed his heels as he walked, sat down heavily and buried his face in his hands. They wondered why his shoulders seemed to shake.
Justin Marks looked just as bad. Or worse.
Bill was sunk in a dull lethargy, in an apathy so deep that he didn’t know where he was, and cared less.
Justin Marks stood up and said, “Your Honor, we request an adjournment of the case for twenty-four hours.”
“For what reason?”
“Your Honor, I intended to call the woman known as Keena to the stand this morning. She was in a room at the Hotel Hollyfield. Last night she went up to her room at eleven after I talked with her in the lounge. She hasn’t been seen since. Her room is empty. All her possessions are there, but she is gone. I would like time to locate her, your Honor.”
The judge looked extremely disappointed.
He pursed his lips and said, in a sweet tone, “You are sure that such a woman actually exists, counsellor?”
Justin Marks turned pale and Amery Heater chuckled.
“Of course, your Honor! Why, only last night...”
“Her people came and got her,” Bill Maloney said heavily. He didn’t look up. The jury shifted restlessly. They had expected to be entertained by a gorgeous redhead. Without her testimony, the story related by Maloney seemed even more absurd than it had seemed when they had heard it. Of course, it would be a shame to electrocute a nice clean young man like that, but really you can’t have people going about killing their neighbors and then concocting such a fantasy about it...
“What’s that?” the judge asked suddenly.
It began as a hum, so low as to be more of a vibration than a sound. A throb that seemed to come from the bowels of the earth. Slowly it increased in pitch and in violence, and if the judge had any more to say on the subject, no one heard him. He appeared to be trying to beat the top of his desk in with the gavel. But the noise couldn’t be heard.
Slowly climbing up the audible range, it filled the court. As it passed the index of vibration of the windows, they shattered, but the falling glass couldn’t be heard. A man who had been wearing glasses stared through empty frames.
The sound passed beyond the upper limits of the human ear, became hypersonic, and every person in the courtroom was suddenly afflicted with a blinding headache.
It stopped as abruptly as a scream in the night.
For a moment there was a misty arch in the solid wall. Beyond it was the startling vagueness of a line of blue hills. Hills that didn’t belong there.
She came quickly through the arch. It faded. She was not tall, but gave the impression of tallness. Her hair was the startling red of port wine, her skin so translucent as to seem faintly bluish. Her eyes were halfway between sherry and honey. Tiny crimson beads were on the tip of each eyelash. Her warm full lips were parted, and they could all see the little green enameled triangles on her white teeth. Her single garment was like the silver metallic garment they had touched. But it was golden. Without any apparent means of support, it clung to her lovely body, following each line and curve.
She looked around the court Maloney’s eyes were warm blue fire. “Keena!” he gasped. She ran to him, threw herself on him, her arms around his neck, her face hidden in the line of jaw, throat and shoulder. He murmured things to her that the jury strained to hear.
Amery Heater, feeling his case fade away, was the first to recover.
“Hypnotism!” he roared.
It took the judge a full minute of steady pounding to silence the spectators. “One more disturbance like this, and I’ll clear the court,” he said.
Maloney had come to life. She sat on his lap and they could hear her say, “What are they trying to do to you?”
He smiled peacefully. “They want to kill me, honey. They say I killed Jim Finch.”
She turned and her eyes shriveled the jury and the judge.
“Stupid!” she hissed.
There was a little difficulty swearing her in. Justin Marks, his confidence regained, thoroughly astonished at finding that Bill Maloney had been telling the truth all along, questioned Keena masterfully. She backed up Maloney’s story in every particular. Maloney couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Her accent was odd, and her voice had a peculiar husky and yet liquid quality.
Justin Marks knuckled his mustache proudly, bowed to Amery Heater and said, “Do you wish to cross-examine?”