He took a deep breath and opened the door.
And then he knew he should have stayed away. His heart did a double somersault when he saw her sitting there at her desk, looking up at him with a slight impersonal smile. She was twice as beautiful as he remembered. But of course that was silly—
Wait—was it silly? This was, somehow, another universe. It had a completely different Keith Winton in it.
Why shouldn’t it have a completely different Betty Hadley?
Only she wasn’t different really. She was just more beautiful. He couldn’t tell exactly where the difference lay. It was as subtle as was the difference between the girls on the magazine covers back there and the ones on the covers here. They were the same girls in the same costumes but they had more—well, you name it.
It was like that with Betty—she was the same girl but subtly more beautiful and more desirable. He was twice as much in love with her.
Her smile faded and she said, «Yes?» Keith realized that he must have been staring.
He said, «My name is Kei—uh—Karl Winston, Miss Hadley. I—uh—»
She saw he was floundering and helped him out. «Miss Blake tells me you are a friend of hers and a writer. Won’t you sit down, Mr. Winston?»
«Thanks,» he said, taking the chair opposite her desk. «Yes, I brought in a story which …» And he went on talking, or rather his tongue did, now that he’d got it back, telling her substantially the same story he’d told Keith Winton.
But his mind wasn’t on what he was saying at all.
And then, somehow, he was making his getaway without falling over his own feet and the interview was over and he was out of the door. And he knew he’d never again torture himself by coming that close to her again. Not that it wouldn’t be worth the torture if there was a chance in a billion but there wasn’t—there couldn’t be.
He was so miserable that he almost walked blindly past the receptionist’s desk without speaking but Marion Blake called out, «Oh, Mr. Winston.»
He turned and managed to make himself smile. He said, «Thanks a lot, Miss Blake, for telling them—»
«Oh, don’t mention that. That’s all right. But I have a message for you from Mr. Winton.»
«Huh? But I just talked to—»
«Yes, I know; he just left to keep an important appointment. But he said he wanted to ask you something and he’ll be back by twelve-thirty and could you telephone him then?»
«Why, sure. I’ll be glad to. And again, thanks a lot.»
He started for the door, wondering what Keith Winton wanted to talk to him about so soon. He’d been in Betty Hadley’s office less than fifteen minutes. Winton couldn’t possibly have read even one of the two stories.
But—well, why wonder? He’d know when he phoned at half past twelve.
As he walked toward the elevators in the hallway outside Borden Publications, Inc., the door of one of the elevators slid open. Mr. and Mrs. L. A. Borden emerged and the door slid shut behind them.
Caught unaware, Keith nodded and spoke to them. Each of them nodded slightly and Mr. Borden murmured something inaudible, as one does when spoken to by someone whom one can’t recall.
They went past him and into the offices he’d just left.
Keith frowned as he waited for a down elevator. Of course they didn’t know him and he shouldn’t have spoken. It was a very slight slip but he’d have to be on the alert to avoid even slight ones.
He’d made one back in Betty’s office, too, when he’d started to introduce himself as Keith Winton instead of Karl Winston. And, now he thought of it Betty had given him a very peculiar look when he’d made that slip. Almost as though—but that was silly. He put the thought out of his mind.
It came to him again, as he walked into the elevator, that the similarities of this universe might be more dangerous to him than its differences, might make him give himself away more easily. He worried about it a little.
He’d have worried about it more if he’d known that he already had.
CHAPTER X
Slade of the W.B.I
KEITH WINTON DIDN’T feel like going back to his hotel and grinding out another story just yet. This afternoon and evening, maybe. He had a good start with three stories but three stories, even fairly short ones and rewritten, are plenty for two days. He knew those stories were good and he wanted to keep up the quality and not go stale. The rest of today, then, he’d take off and wander around a bit.
Tomorrow, another story or two, so he’d have something to take in on Friday when he kept his appointments at Borden. It was funny, he thought, to be on the opposite side of the fence there—to be taking stories in instead of having writers and agents bring them. Maybe he should get himself an agent—no, let that wait until he had a sale or two he could report and a foot inside the door.
He strolled over to Broadway and down to Times Square. He stood looking at the Times Building, wondering what was strange about it—then realized that the strips of current news headlines in electric lights weren’t flashing around as they should have been. Why not?
Oh sure—because daytime New York used a minimum of electric lighting. Those whatever-they-were rays emitted by electric lights and detectable by the Arcturian space-ships were blanked out at night by the mist-out but by day they weren’t.
That was why, then, most places he’d been in had seemed so dimly lighted compared to the offices and stores and restaurants he’d known. Come to think of it, there hadn’t been any artificial light at all in most of them.
He’d have to watch little things like that, to keep from giving himself away. He’d had the electric light on in his hotel room most of the time he’d been working. Luckily, he hadn’t been called on it. Hereafter he’d move the desk and typewriter over closer to the window and leave the light off.
He walked past a news stand slowly, and read the headlines:
FLEET BLASTS ARC OUTPOST
Big Victory for Solar Forces
That ought to give him a kick, Keith thought, but it didn’t. He couldn’t hate Arcturians—he didn’t even know what they looked like. This was real, yes, but it couldn’t seem real to him yet. It still seemed like a dream he might wake up from. Dream? No, more like a nightmare. It was a world in which the only woman he’d ever really loved, head over heels, was engaged to somebody else.
He stood staring moodily at a window of hand-painted neckties. Something touched his shoulder and he turned around. He jumped back, almost striking the glass of the window. It was one of the big purple hairy Lunans, a Bem, no less.
It said, «Pardon me, do you have a match?»
Keith wanted to laugh, but his hand trembled a little as he handed over a package of matches and then took it back when the Lunan had lighted a cigarette.
It said, «Thank you, sir,» and walked on.
Keith watched his back and the way he walked. Despite his bulging muscles he walked like a man wading through waisthigh water. Heavy gravity, of course, Keith thought—on the Moon he’d be strong enough to throw Gargantua around. And he was slumped down, pulled together by that gravity. Not an inch over eight feet tall. On the Moon he’d probably be eight and a half.
But wasn’t there supposed to be no air on the Moon? How could Lunans breathe? And they must breathe, because he’d lighted a cigarette. Anything that doesn’t breathe couldn’t smoke.
Suddenly, and for the first time, something occurred to Keith. He could go to the moon! Mars! Venus! Why not? In a universe with space-travel why not take advantage of it? A little chill of excitement went down his spine. Somehow he hadn’t, in the few days he’d been here, thought of spacetravel in connection with himself. Now the idea hit him like a ton of bricks.