I
In that suspended moment when the gray mists began to whirl around them, Harold Shea realized that, although the pattern was perfectly clear, the details often didn’t work out right.
It was all very well to realize that, as Doc Chalmers once said, «The world we live in is composed of impressions received through the senses, and if the senses can be attuned to receive a different series of impressions, we should infallibly find ourselves living in another of the infinite number of possible worlds.» It was a scientific and personal triumph to have proved that, by the use of the sorites of symbolic logic, the gap to one of those possible worlds could be bridged.
The trouble was what happened after you got there. It amounted to living by one’s wits; for, once the jump across space-time had been made, and you were in the new environment, the conditions of the surroundings had to be accepted completely. It was no good trying to fire a revolver or scratch a match or light a flashlight in the world of Norse myth; these things did not form part of the surrounding mental pattern, and remained obstinately inert masses of useless material. On the other hand, magic.
The mist thickened and whirled. Shea felt the pull of Belphebe’s hand, clutching his desperately as though something were trying to pull her in the other direction.
Another jerk at Shea’s hand reminded him that they might not even wind up in the sameplace, given that their various mental backgrounds would spread the influence of the generalized spells across different space-time patterns. «Hold on!» he cried, and clutched Belphebe’s hand tighter still.
Shea felt earth under his feet and something hitting him on the head. He realized that he was standing in pouring rain, coming down vertically and with such intensity that he could not see more than a few yards in any direction. His first glance was toward Belphebe; she swung herself into his arms and they kissed damply.
«At least,» she said, disengaging herself a little, «you are with me, my most dear lord, and so there’s nought to fear.»
They looked around, water running off their noses and chins. Shea’s heavy woolen shirt was already so soaked that it stuck to his skin, and Belphebe’s neat hair was taking on a drowned-rat appearance.
She pointed and cried, «There’s one!»
Shea peered toward a lumpish dark mass that had a shape vaguely resembling Pete Brodsky.
«Shea?» came a call, and without waiting for a reply the lump started toward them. As it did so, the downpour lessened and the light brightened.
«Curse it, Shea!» said Brodsky, as he approached. «What kind of a box is this? If I couldn’t work my own racket better, I’d turn myself in for mopery. Where the hell are we?»
«Ohio, I hope,» said Shea. «And look, shamus, we’re better off than we were, ain’t we? I’m sorry about this rain, but I didn’t order it.»
«All I got to say is you better be right,» said Brodsky gloomily. «You can get it all for putting the snatch on an officer, and I ain’t sure I can square the rap even now. Where’s the other guy?»
Shea looked around. «Walter may be here, but it looks as though he didn’t come through to the same place. And if you ask me, the question is not where we are but when we are. It wouldn’t do us much good to be back in Ohio in 700 A. D., which is about the time we left. If this rain would only let up.»
With surprising abruptness the rain did, walking away in a wall of small but intense downpours. Spots and bars of sky appeared among the clouds wafted along by a brisk steady current of air that penetrated Shea’s wet shirt chillingly, and the sun shot an occasional beam through the clouds to touch up the landscape.
It was a good landscape. Shea and his companions were standing in deep grass, on one of the higher spots of an extent of rolling ground. This stretch in turn appeared to be the top of a plateau, falling away to the right. Mossy boulders shouldered up through the grass, which here and there gave way to patches of purple-flowered heather, while daisies nodded in the steady breeze. Here and there was a single tree, but down in the valley beyond their plateau the low land was covered with what appeared at this distance to be birch and oak. In the distance, as they turned to contemplate the scene, rose the heads of farblue mountains.
The cloud-cover thinned rapidly and broke some more. The air had cleared enough so they could now see two other little storms sweeping across the middle distance, trailing their veils of rain. As the patches of sunlight whisked past, the landscape blazed with a singularly vivid green, quite unlike that of Ohio.
Brodsky was the first to speak. «If this is Ohio, I’m a peterman,» he said. «Listen, Shea, do I got to tell you again you ain’t got much time? If those yaps from the D.A.’s office get started on this, you might just as well hit yourself on the head and save them the trouble. He’s coming up for election this fall and needs a nice fat case. And there’s the F.B.I. Rover boys — they just love snatch cases, and you can’t put no fix in with them that will stick. So you better get me back before people start asking questions.»
Shea said, rather desperately, «Pete, I’m doing all I can. Honest. I haven’t the least idea where we are, or in what period. Until I do, I don’t dare try sending us anywhere else. We’ve already picked up a rather high charge of magical static coming here, and any spell I used without knowing what kind of magic they use around here is apt to make us simply disappear or end up in Hell — you know, real red hell with flames all around, like in a fundamentalist church.»
«Okay,» said Brodsky. «You got the office. Me, I don’t think you got more than a week to get us back at the outside.»
Belphebe pointed, «Marry, are those not sheep?»
Shea shaded his eyes. «Right you are, darling,» he said. The objects looked like a collection of lice on a piece of green baize, but he trusted his wife’s phenomenal eyesight.
«Sheep,» said Brodsky. One could almost hear the gears grind in his brain as he looked around. «Sheep.» A beatific expression spread over his face. «Shea, you must of done it! Three, two, and out we’re inIreland — and if it is, you can hit me on the head if I ever want to go back.»
Shea followed his eyes. «It does rather look like it,» he said. «But when.»
Something went past with a rush of displaced air. It struck a nearby boulder with a terrific crash and burst into fragments that whizzed about like pieces o fan artillery shall.
«Duck!» shouted Shea, throwing himself flat and dragging Belphebe down with him.
Brodsky went into a crouch, lips drawn tight over his teeth, looking around with quick, jerky motions for the source of the missile. Nothing more happened. After a minute, Shea and Belphebe got up and went over to examine a twenty-pound hunk of sandy conglomerate.
Shea said, «Somebody is chucking hundred pound boulders around. This may beIreland, but I hope it isn’t the time of Finn McCool or Strongbow.»
«Cripes,» said Brodsky, «and me without my heater. And you a shiv man with no shiv.»
It occurred to Shea that at whatever period they had hit this place, he was in a singularly weaponless state. He climbed on the boulder against which the missile had destroyed itself and looked in all directions. There was no sign of life except the distant, tiny sheep — not even a shepherd or a sheep-dog.
He slid down and sat on a ledge of the boulder and considered, the stone feeling hard against his wet back. «Sweetheart,» he said, addressing Belphebe, «it seems to me that whenever we are, the first thing we have to do is find people and get oriented. You’re the guide. Which direction’s the most likely?»
The girl shrugged. «My woodcraft is nought without trees,» she said, «but if you put it so, I’d seek a valley, for people ever live by watercourses.»