Tube to nowhere, by Henry Kuttner
Tube to Nowhere, “Thrilling Wonder Stories”, June 1941.
JOE BINNEY wriggled uncomfortably in his seat on the Jersey bus. His thin face, topped by mouse-colored hair, flushed with annoyance as he squirmed. The dignified, white-headed oldster sitting next to him gave Joe a fishy stare.
“Sorry, Mr. Dennler,” Binney muttered. “That da— that bottle keeps digging into me.”
“Bottle?” Dennler’s tufted eyebrows rose. “Do you drink?”
Binney hastily disclaimed the idea. He had to disclaim many ideas in Dennler’s sanctified company. Dennler, it seemed, demanded certain definite qualifications in the salesmen from whom he purchased goods.
Oh, well—Dennler was already sold on a big order from Pinnacle Novelty Company, the firm for which Binney worked. That meant a fat commission, and a chance to take Susan Blythe to dinner and the theater. Binney’s thin face wrinkled into a wistful smile. Maybe, some day, Susan would marry him....
“Oh, the bottle,” Binney said, returning to the present. “Some chap I know gave it to me. Wanted to have it tested in our labs. He didn’t know what it was—combined some chemicals and got a fluid that wouldn’t react to anything, he says. Doesn’t matter. Here’s the Tunnel. We’ll get a taxi on the other side and I’ll take you up to the office. Mr. Horton will be glad to see you.”
“Ah,” said Dennler. “Always like to settle matters in person. I shall put in a good word for you, Binney. You’re an excellent salesman.”
“Thank you,” said Binney. “Hope we can find a taxi in a hurry. It’s raining cats and dogs.”
It was, indeed, pouring. As the bus circled down the ramp into the Holland Tunnel, water was cascading along the gutters. A low, gray sky was sullen overhead. In the distance thunder growled ominously. Lightning forked.
THE bus halted as the driver checked the toll. Then it rolled on into the brightly lit depths of the tube. The roar of the storm faded to a faint humming. Binney automatically began to count the metal doors that broke the smooth walls at regular intervals.
One ... two ... three ... He was thinking of the glamorous face of Susan Blythe ... four ... five ... He was due for a promotion—this sale would clinch it. And then ... six ... seven ... And then Tim Blake, Binney’s rival in business and love, could go hang, for all his Greek god profile and Atlas physique.
Eight ... nine ... The bus sped faster. Idly Binney wondered how long the tunnel was. The doors were about forty feet apart. With the concentration that such trivial things evoke, it abruptly seemed most important to Binney not to lose count.
Ten ... eleven ...
“—especially on Tuesdays,” said Mr. Dennler. Binney caught only the tail end of the sentence and grunted.
Fifteen ... twenty ... thirty ... forty doors.
Dennler was slightly irritated. He liked an audience. And obviously Binney wasn’t listening. He was staring out the window rather fishily.
Fifty ... sixty ...
“Don’t you think so?” Dennler repeated.
“Uh—yes. Just a moment.”
But the other kept on talking. Binney was conscious of a slow surge of annoyance. He had reached the one hundred and ninety-fifth door when Dennler leaned forward, and the bottle in Binney’s pocket dug agonizingly into his ribs.
The salesman cursed luridly.
And that started the whole fantastic affair. Because when Binney suddenly got mad, his suprarenal glands naturally became active and poured adrenalin into his blood-stream. And just at that moment a bolt of lightning hit near the bus. The two incidents were connected.
The bus was rolling up the ramp toward the New York exit. Thunder was bellowing. And out of the cloudy skies a crackling streak of blazing light flashed....
Lightning plays strange tricks sometimes. No one in the bus was injured. Nothing happened to anybody—except Binney. He vanished.
Dennler yelped and collapsed, moaning in a low, hopeless voice. When your companion in a bus seat abruptly disappears, it is difficult to cling to sanity. Mr. Dennler undoubtedly felt that he had not deserved such treatment.
Binney, himself, was past thinking. As the lightning struck, he was momentarily conscious of a wave of uncomfortable warmth. He heard glass tinkle, and felt the bottle in his pocket break. The fluid gushed out, seeming to sink right into Binney’s skin—he could feel it, like liniment, penetrating through his flesh with a queer, hot tingling. There was a grinding shock....
“That was a close one,” said Binney, turning to grin at Dennler.
Only Dennler wasn’t there any more. The bus wasn’t there.
New York wasn’t there!
“Oh, my God,” Binney said quietly, appalled. “Wha—wha—wha—” He fell silent, considering.
HE was sitting on hard stone, translucent green glass that looked like emerald, but which obviously wasn’t. Above him the sky had turned crimson, and bloodshot clouds drifted across it. The sun was excessively large, and red. All around Binney were red walls, rising to a height of several hundred feet.
He sat approximately in the center of a crescent-shaped plaza, paved with green stones. Nearby, in the middle of the half-moon, was a sunken depression in the pavement filled with water. A hundred feet away the wall of a building loomed, white, Binney now realized, but painted red by the queer sunlight.
It was like being at the bottom of a crescent-shaped well, surrounded by the walls of the towering structures, windowless and enigmatic.
“Urdle ah nyasta dree?” asked an inquiring voice behind Binney.
Naturally puzzled, the unfortunate salesman turned his head. What he saw made him rise and retreat rapidly back until his foot slipped on curving stones.
With a sharp, shrill cry, Binney fell into the pool.
“Ah nyasta wurn!” said the strange voice, more decisively.
Binney scarcely heard it. He was quite certain now that he had gone mad. Certainly when one falls into a pool, a normal amount of dampening is expected. But Binney’s body was reclining at full length on an elastic, watery surface which gave only slightly under his weight. It wasn’t H2O, that was plain. Some vague recollection of deuterium — heavy water—stabilized Binney’s wavering sanity as he scrambled back on the stones.
“Urdle wurn,” the voice said, tinged now with impatience.
Binney, on his hands and knees, stared at the creature confronting him. Or, rather, the creatures. Binney couldn’t be sure. The thing had two heads, both of them extraordinary. The body was lean, long, and covered with reddish fur. The legs—two of them— were short and stumpy, like an elephant’s. From the shoulders grew a folded, grayish membrane that completely hid the arms, leaving only two claw-like hands visible.
There were two heads sprouting from the skinny shoulders. Each had two bulging, large-pupiled eyes, no nose, and a tiny button of a mouth. The ears were large and bat-like. The face on the left had reddish whiskers on its darkish skin, and a short crop of crimson hair. The head on the right was more delicately featured, without a beard, and had long, burnished curls. It seemed oddly feminine.
“Oh, my God,” Binney moaned, not daring to rise. “I’ll wake up in a minute. I know I will.”
“Nyasta!” said the bearded head. But the other one shook itself angrily.
“Dree!” it snapped shrilly. “Urdle dree!”
“Dree,” conceded the other in a sulky voice. “Urdle dree”