Playing it safe he decided to concentrate on finding out a bit more about her personal background. Apart from the fact that he was naturally interested in her, it was just possible that she might provide information that would be of use in building up theories—even though it was highly probable that any theories built up on the present fund of evidence would eventually collapse like a house of cards.
But conversation for its own sake was something. In fact, it was a hell of a lot—the kind of therapy they could both use in liberal doses.
He learned that Mary worked in the West End office of Empire Chemicals, that she had been with the company five years, that her boss was called Mr. Jenkins (he was mildly surprised that anybody could still be called Mr. Jenkins), that she played tennis and Scrabble and liked Dixieland jazz, that her parents were dead and that her fiance had disconcertingly married someone else.
In return he told her a little about himself. Presently he was even telling her about Christine. Which was surprising, because he never told anyone about Christine. Not unless he was drunk or knew the listener very well. In this case, neither circumstance obtained. But, he told himself with amusement, this was quite an exceptional case, really: it was the first time he had ever been imprisoned by bug-eyed monsters. He didn’t regard them (and it had to be plural for there was surely too much for one to handle) as bug-eyed monsters in the literal sense. Well, not necessarily. More in the metaphorical sense. And that was possibly even more disturbing.
‘You’re miles away,’ said Mary. ‘What were you thinking about?’
‘About how I would like to be miles away,’ he answered lightly. ‘Or at least, back in Kensington Gardens with the prospect of returning to my empty little flat. I never knew it could be so attractive.’
‘I do and I don’t,’ she remarked inscrutably.
‘Do and don’t what?’
‘Want to get away from here. I mean I do, of course, really—but not until I’ve found out what it’s all about.’
Avery was surprised. The girl had more spirit than he would have thought. He was about to predict that they would not let their victims find anything out if it could possibly be avoided, when Mary’s teletypewriter began to chatter away.
Please return to your own accommodation, it said. You will not be separated for long.
‘That’s what the wretched machine told us last time,’ said Avery moodily. ‘But it wasn’t exactly telling the truth, was it?’
‘You never know,’ said Mary, ‘we might find later that it was…. It seems to have been pretty honest about most things.’
Avery laughed. ‘No comment. That’s the catch-phrase in our crazy little world. What I mean is that it put us together instead of me and Barbara and you and Tom.’
‘I think it’s probably making introductions,’ she said seriously. ‘Did you want to see Barbara again very much?’
‘Yes, of course. But not in a special personal sense. What about Tom?’
She shrugged. ‘Not particularly. He was rather tiring.’
‘Am I rather tiring?’
‘Not in the way that Tom was.’
Avery was amused. At least he seemed to have a negative virtue.
The teletypewriter chattered at them once more.
It is necessary for you to return to your own accommodation immediately, it said, adding emphasis to the original message. Please then lie down on your own bed and await further developments.
Mary giggled. ‘That seems to indicate breath-taking possibilities.’
Avery smiled. ‘Not with these goons, it doesn’t—well, not like that. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if it is some kind of remote-controlled medical check. They are very inquisitive little beasties I suppose I’d better get back to my own state room, otherwise it will be crystals for two.’
They both lay down on their beds, waiting—and feeling oddly embarrassed.
‘It was nice meeting you,’ called Mary.
‘A pleasure,’ he answered. ‘Let’s hope it’s a tea-party for four next time. We might be able to work something out if we could all get together.’
The wall came back. It came back with a speed that astonished Avery. But then he had other things to think about than the kind of mechanism that could project walls almost instantaneously; for the illuminated ceiling began to darken slowly. And presently he was lost in a roomful of blackness.
But for a moment only.
Where the ceiling had been there was now a magnifi-began to appear.
They were stars.
Where the ceiling had been there was now a magnificent window—a window on the universe.
That it was real, Avery did not doubt. Nothing but reality could provide the sheer brilliance, the hard unwinking intensity, the awful remoteness of so many living suns. They hung motionless, infinitely small and great beyond imagining. They hung like lanterns on the far Christmas tree of creation. They hung like teardrops of frozen fire.
For a moment, the impact was so great that Avery wanted to curl up like a foetus, to reject the outward reality and know only the blank, bleak security of his square metallic womb. But the moment passed; and he was hypnotized into acceptance.
He never knew there could be so many stars. He had known intellectually, of course, that the universe contained stars outnumbering the grains of sand on the shores of the world’s oceans. But he had never known that this was real, that it was anything more than empty words.
But now the knowledge etched itself into his brain, swallowed his personality, shrank his ego to a single molecule of humility, seared all his human experience into a lonely atom of wonder.
There, above or below—for he no longer knew whether he was looking up or down—were blank space-ways curling over the deserts of infinity. There, above and below and beyond, were the milky golden nebulae of star cities—impossible flowers of fire and time locked in the dark glass of the cosmos. There, if anywhere, was the face of God.
He wanted to die, he wanted to laugh, he wanted to sing or cry out with pain and fear. He wanted to dance for joy and simultaneously mourn the absolute tragedy.
He did nothing. He could do nothing. Nothing except stare with a subtle anguish that came near to praying.
Then suddenly the universe began to dance. It swung slowly into the gay leap of a long parabola. Stars and star cities, space, time and creation swung slowly round the fixed microcosm that was Richard Avery.
And then there was the greatest shock of all.
The planet danced into being. The planet. A pumpkin filled with light. A celestial pumpkin whose face was green with oceans, blue and white with clouds, red and brown and yellow with islands.
It was entirely beautiful. It was a ball of life.
There was a remembered voice. A voice remembered over centuries and light-years and the long limbos of dreams and imagination.
‘This,’ said the voice, ‘is home. This is the garden. This is the world where you will live and grow and understand. This is where you will discover enough but not too much. This is where life is. It is yours.’
Richard Avery’s eyes were filled with tears, because the pain and the knowledge and the promise and the truth were unbearable. His body was icy cold because, also, there was fear.
He knew he could not take any more. And at the moment of knowing, a tiny crystal burned into transient glory above the face of the planet.
It was a crystal he already recognized. It was the crystal of oblivion.