Adventure stories; Science fiction; Time travel -- Fiction
Teetering on the edge of panic, he struggled to make better sense
of the facts. The prickly pounding he had felt in his fingers might
well have been electrical and only that, and Johnny Kimball had once
demonstrated for him the "static jet" which might explain the draft of
air. Three-dimensional television, perhaps--
He shook his head. No inventor would set up a demonstration like this,
in an abandoned grocery, without any announcement or literature; nor
would there be likely to be eighteen screens, each one showing a
motionless and quite impossible scene. No; it was insane, but these
garish things were--
Windows.
Into what? Clutching at his frayed emotions, he took a step toward the
next frame. His foot crunched on the forgotten fountain pen. For a
second he flailed in terror at nothing, and then pitched head foremost
over the low ledge.
* * * * *
After a moment the sweet piping spoke again. "You are not hurt. The
mental shock will pass shortly."
Andreson said nothing and stared fixedly at the crimson glow underneath
his eyelids. Physically he was unhurt, but his sanity was precarious.
In his mind, behind the closed lids, it happened over and over again:
the long twisting fall, with the great city spinning and growing
beneath him in a riot of color, and damp hot air gushing past him, the
sudden swooping of the dark figure and the thrum of wings. He tried to
pass out again and awaken on the floor of the gallery, but the cold,
chiming voice jabbed him awake again.
"This is quite real. You are intelligent enough to accept it--stop
thinking like an infant."
The motherly reprimand under such circumstances planted a small germ
of amusement somewhere in his mind, and he grasped it frantically and
began to laugh, still keeping his eyes clenched shut. Even without
seeing its face, he could feel the creature's alarm at his hysteria,
but he allowed the shaking to exhaust him into a sort of calmness. Only
when his breathing had become controlled and even did he allow himself
a second look.
Red sunlight played harshly in upon him through the translucent walls
of the small room, and burned sullenly within the crystal bar which
crossed above his head. One wall was recessed with what seemed to be
bookshelves, and odd articles of furniture stood here and there; but
evidently none of them had been designed for humans, for he was lying
on the smooth floor, his jacket bunched under his head. The cowled
shape still arched over him with Satanic solicitude, black against the
glare, and somehow smaller than he had expected it to be. He hoped that
that cape would not expand into wings--not yet--for his new calm still
stood at the shimmering verge of madness.
"Thank you," he said carefully. "I owe you my life."
The silhouetted head moved as if to dismiss the matter. "Your sudden
appearance in mid-air was startling. We were fortunate that I happened
to be in flight at the time."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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