No, here and now he had to be Karl Winston and make a niche for himself—at least until he found out what it was all about. He’d be walking a tightrope for awhile too—one mistake and it would be too bad.
But how, what, where?
He shoved those wonderings resolutely aside. There must be an answer, maybe even a way back. But survival came first and his mind must be free to plan and to plan intelligently. How could he parlay a hundred bucks worth of credits into a future?
He thought, and figured and planned. After awhile he went to the desk and borrowed paper and a pencil from the librarian. Returning to his table he began to make a list of things he’d need and its length appalled him. But, he thought, when he had it finished that he could do it for about forty dol—four hundred credits—he corrected himself—and have six hundred to live on for awhile.
Outside he saw with relief that some of the stores were still open—although it was three o’clock in the afternoon now.
He found a dime-store that was operating and started there, realizing that he couldn’t afford to be fastidious about little things and things that wouldn’t show. He started with a small cardboard suitcase, the cheapest he could find. He went on from there to socks and handkerchiefs and razor and toothbrush and on down the list.
Gauze bandage and an antiseptic for his shoulder—pencils and a ream of paper—the list seemed endless and, when he had added a few shirts from a cheap haberdashery shop, the suitcase was almost full.
He had the suit he was wearing sponged and pressed while he waited in a cubicle at the back of a cleaner’s shop and he had his shoes shined.
His final purchase, and it left him almost exactly five hundred credits, was an armful of pulp magazines of various kinds. He took his time picking them out, especially for the purpose he had in mind.
It was while he was making that final purchase that the crowd must have gathered. When he came out of the drugstore where he’d bought the magazines the edge of the sidewalk was lined half a dozen deep and, from down the street a block or so, came the sound of wild cheering.
He hesitated a moment and then stood still, backed against the window of the drugstore. Whatever was coming he could see better there than by pushing up against the crowd at the curb.
Something or someone was coming. The cheering grew nearer. Keith saw that all traffic had stopped and pulled toward the curbs. Two policemen on motorcycles came along and behind them was a car with a uniformed man at the wheel.
There wasn’t anyone in the back seat of the car but above it, floating in midair about ten feet above the car and keeping pace with it, was something. It was a round, featureless, blank metal sphere the size of a basketball.
The cheering grew as it came nearer.
Keith stared, incredulous. Other people had backed up alongside him to see better.
He heard words now that were part of the cheers and recognized one of them. «Mekky! Mekky! MEKKY!» And someone beside him yelled, «Get the Arcs for us, Mekky!»
But over or under the cheering, Keith suddenly heard a voice that wasn’t a cheering, yelling voice. It was a calm, clear voice that seemed to come from everywhere or nowhere.
«Very interesting, Keith Winton» it said. «Come and see me some time.»
CHAPTER VIII
Advice from a Sphere
KEITH STARTED VIOLENTLY and looked around him. No one near him was looking at him. But the suddenness with which he turned made the man to his right turn and stare.
«Did you hear that?» Keith demanded.
«Hear what?»
«Something about—about a Keith Winton?»
«You’re crazy,» the man said. His eyes left Keith’s and went to the street again, and he yelled at the top of his voice, «Mekky! ’Ray for Mekky!»
Keith stumbled out from the building into the open area of walk between the crowd at the back of the sidewalk and the crowd at the curb. He tried to keep pace with the car and the thing that floated above it, the basketball-sized sphere. He had the strangest feeling that it was that thing which had spoken to him.
If so, it had called him by name and no one else had heard it. Now that he thought of it that voice hadn’t seemed to come from outside at all. It had been inside his head. And it had been a flat, mechanical-sounding voice. It hadn’t sounded like a human voice at all.
Was he going crazy? Or was he crazy?
But whatever the explanation, he had a blind impulse not to lose sight of—of whatever the basketball was. It had called him by name. Maybe it knew the answer to why he was here—to what had happened to the world as he, Keith Winton, knew it—to the world in which there’d been two world wars but no interplanetary ones, to the world in which he’d been editor of a science-fiction magazine which—here—was an adventure magazine and was edited by someone who had the name of Keith Winton but didn’t even look like him.
Was the basketball-sized sphere Mekky?
Maybe Mekky had the answers. Mekky had said, «Come and see me some time»!
He stumbled into people, his suitcase banged legs, he drew sharp looks and sharp words—but he kept going, not quite keeping up with the pace of the car out in the street but not losing much ground either.
And the voice came inside his head again. «Keith Winton,» it said. «Stop. Don’t follow. You’ll be sorry.»
Keith started to yell his answer. «Why? Who are—» and realized that, even over the cheering, people were hearing him and turning to stare.
«Don’t attract attention,» the voice said. «Yes, I can read your thoughts. Yes, I am Mekky. Do as you have planned and see me later—three months from now.»
«Why?» Keith thought. «Why so long?»
«A crisis in the war,» said the voice. «The human race is at stake. The Arcturians can win. I have no time for you now.»
«What shall I do?»
«As you have planned,» the voice said. «And be careful. You are in danger every minute.»
Keith tried desperately to frame a question that would give him the answer he sought. «But what happened? Where am—»
«Later,» said the voice. «Later I will try to solve your problem. I perceive it through your mind but I do not know the answer yet.»
«Am I crazy?»
«No. And do not make one fatal mistake. This is real—it is not a figment of your imagination. Your danger here is real and if you are killed here you are very dead. I have no time now. Stop following.»
Abruptly in Keith’s mind, before he could again hear the sounds of cheering and the other noises, there was a sudden sensation of silence. Whatever had been in his mind had withdrawn. He knew that without knowing how he knew. He knew there wasn’t any use framing another question there. There wouldn’t be any answer.
Obedient to the last order he stopped walking. He stopped so suddenly that someone bumped into him from behind and snarled at him.
He caught his balance and stood staring down the street, over the heads of the crowd, at the sphere that was floating away from him, out of this life. What was it? What kept it up there? Was it alive? How could it have read his mind? And it seemed to know who he was, what his problem was—but not the answer.