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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd6e90a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51053 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51053) diff --git a/old/51053-h.zip b/old/51053-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index af535a2..0000000 --- a/old/51053-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51053-h/51053-h.htm b/old/51053-h/51053-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index d874e5e..0000000 --- a/old/51053-h/51053-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1406 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Judas Ram, by Sam Merwin, Jr.. - </title> - - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.caption {font-weight: bold;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.poetry .stanza -{ - margin: 1em auto; -} - -.poetry .verse -{ - padding-left: 3em; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.ph1, .ph2, .ph3, .ph4 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; } -.ph1 { font-size: xx-large; margin: .67em auto; } -.ph2 { font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; } -.ph3 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } -.ph4 { font-size: medium; margin: 1.12em auto; } - - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Judas Ram, by Sam Merwin - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Judas Ram - -Author: Sam Merwin - -Release Date: January 27, 2016 [EBook #51053] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDAS RAM *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="352" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>JUDAS RAM</h1> - -<p>BY SAM MERWIN, Jr.</p> - -<p>Illustrated by JAMES VINCENT</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Galaxy Science Fiction December 1950.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3">The house was furnished with all<br /> -luxuries, including women. If it only<br /> -had a lease that could be broken—</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Roger Tennant, crossing the lawn, could see two of the three wings -of the house, which radiated spoke-like from its heptagonal central -portion. The wing on the left was white, with slim square pillars, -reminiscent of scores of movie sets of the Deep South. That on the -right was sundeck solar-house living-machine modern, something like a -montage of shoeboxes. The wing hidden by the rest of the house was, he -knew, spired, gabled and multicolored, like an ancient building in -pre-Hitler Cracow.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="600" height="273" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Dana was lying under a tree near the door, stretched out on a sort -of deck chair with her eyes closed. She wore a golden gown, long and -close-fitting and slit up the leg like the gown of a Chinese woman. -Above it her comely face was sullen beneath its sleek cocoon of auburn -hair.</p> - -<p>She opened her eyes at his approach and regarded him with nothing like -favor. Involuntarily he glanced down at the tartan shorts that were his -only garment to make sure that they were on properly. They were. He had -thought them up in a moment of utter boredom and they were extremely -comfortable. However, the near-Buchanan tartan did not crease or even -wrinkle when he moved. Their captors had no idea of how a woven design -should behave.</p> - -<p>"Waiting for me?" Tennant asked the girl.</p> - -<p>She said, "I'd rather be dead. Maybe I am. Maybe we're all dead and -this is Hell."</p> - -<p>He stood over her and looked down until she turned away her reddening -face. He said, "So it's going to be you again, Dana. You'll be the -first to come back for a second run."</p> - -<p>"Don't flatter yourself," she replied angrily. She sat up, pushed -back her hair, got to her feet a trifle awkwardly because of the -tight-fitting tubular gown. "If I could do anything about it...."</p> - -<p>"But you can't," he told her. "They're too clever."</p> - -<p>"Is this crop rotation or did you send for me?" she asked cynically. -"If you did, I wish you hadn't. You haven't asked about your son."</p> - -<p>"I don't even want to think about him," said Tennant. "Let's get -on with it." He could sense the restless stirring of the woman -within Dana, just as he could feel the stirring toward her within -himself—desire that both of them loathed because it was implanted -within them by their captors.</p> - -<p>They walked toward the house.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It didn't look like a prison—or a cage. Within the dome of the -barrier, it looked more like a well-kept if bizarre little country -estate. There was clipped lawn, a scattering of trees, even a clear -little brook that chattered unending annoyance at the small stones -which impeded its flow.</p> - -<p>But the lawn was not of grass—it was of a bright green substance that -might have been cellophane but wasn't, and it sprouted from a fabric -that might have been canvas but was something else. The trees looked -like trees, only their trunks were bark all the way through—except -that it was not bark. The brook was practically water, but the small -stones over which it flowed were of no earthly mineral.</p> - -<p>They entered the house, which had no roof, continued to move beneath a -sky that glowed with light which did not come from a sun or moon. It -might have been a well-kept if bizarre little country estate, but it -wasn't. It was a prison, a cage.</p> - -<p>The other two women were sitting in the heptagonal central hall. -Eudalia, who had borne twin girls recently, was lying back, newly thin -and dark of skin and hair, smoking a scentless cigarette. A tall woman, -thirtyish, she wore a sort of shimmering green strapless evening gown. -Tennant wondered how she maintained it in place, for despite her recent -double motherhood, she was almost flat of bosom. He asked her how she -was feeling.</p> - -<p>"Okay, I guess," she said. "The way they manage it, there's nothing -to it." She had a flat, potentially raucous voice. Eudalia had been -a female foreman in a garment-cutting shop before being captured and -brought through.</p> - -<p>"Good," he said. "Glad to hear it." He felt oddly embarrassed. He -turned to Olga, broad, blonde and curiously vital, who sat perfectly -still, regarding him over the pregnant swell of her dirndl-clad waist. -Olga had been a waitress in a mining town hash-house near Scranton.</p> - -<p>Tennant wanted to put an encouraging hand on her shoulder, to say -something that might cheer her up, for she was by far the youngest of -the three female captives, barely nineteen. But with the eyes of the -other two, especially Dana, upon him, he could not.</p> - -<p>"I guess I wasn't cut out to be a Turk," he said. "I don't feel at ease -in a harem, even when it's supposedly my own."</p> - -<p>"You're not doing so badly," Dana replied acidly.</p> - -<p>"Lay off—he can't help it," said Eudalia unexpectedly. "He doesn't -like it any better than we do."</p> - -<p>"But he doesn't have to—have them," objected Olga. She had a trace of -Polish accent that was not unpleasant. In fact, Tennant thought, only -her laughter was unpleasant, a shrill, uncontrolled burst of staccato -sound that jarred him to his heels. Olga had not laughed of late, -however. She was too frightened.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Let's get the meal ordered," said Dana and they were all silent, -thinking of what they wanted to eat but would not enjoy when it came. -Tennant finished with his order, then got busy with his surprise.</p> - -<p>It arrived before the meal, materializing against one of the seven -walls of the roofless chamber. It was a large cabinet on slender -straight legs that resembled dark polished wood. Tennant went to it, -opened a hingeless door and pushed a knob on the inner surface. At once -the air was hideous with the acerate harmony of a singing commercial....</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">... so go soak your head,</div> -<div class="verse">be it gold, brown or red,</div> -<div class="verse">in Any-tone Shampoo!</div> -</div></div> - -<p>A disc jockey's buoyant tones cut in quickly as the final <i>ooooo</i> -faded. "This is Grady Martin, your old night-owl, coming to you with -your requests over Station WZZX, Manhattan. Here's a wire from Theresa -McManus and the girls in the family entrance of Conaghan's Bar and -Grill on West...."</p> - -<p>Tennant watched the girls as a sweet-voiced crooner began to ply -an unfamiliar love lyric to a melody whose similarity to a thousand -predecessors doomed it to instant success.</p> - -<p>Olga sat up straight, her pale blue eyes round with utter disbelief. -She looked at the radio, at Tennant, at the other two women, then back -at the machine. She murmured something in Polish that was inaudible, -but her expression showed that it must have been wistful.</p> - -<p>Eudalia grinned at Tennant and, rising, did a sort of tap dance to the -music, then whirled back into her chair, green dress ashimmer, and sank -into it just to listen.</p> - -<p>Dana stood almost in the center of the room, carmine-tipped fingers -clasped beneath the swell of her breasts. She might have been listening -to Brahms or Debussy. Her eyes glowed with the salty brilliance of -emotion and she was almost beautiful.</p> - -<p>"<i>Rog!</i>" she cried softly when the music stopped. "A radio and WZZX! Is -it—are they—real?"</p> - -<p>"As real as you or I," he told her. "It took quite a bit of doing, -getting them to put a set together. And I wasn't sure that radio would -get through. TV doesn't seem to. Somehow it brings things closer...."</p> - -<p>Olga got up quite suddenly, went to the machine and, after frowning at -it for a moment, tuned in another station from which a Polish-speaking -announcer was followed by polka music. She leaned against the wall, -resting one smooth forearm on the top of the machine. Her eyes closed -and she swayed a little in time to the polka beat.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Tennant caught Dana looking at him and there was near approval in her -expression—approval that faded quickly as soon as she caught his gaze -upon her. The food arrived then and they sat down at the round table to -eat it.</p> - -<p>Tennant's meat looked like steak, it felt like steak, but, lacking the -aroma of steak, it was almost tasteless. This was so with all of their -foods, with their cigarettes, with everything in their prison—or their -cage. Their captors were utterly without a human conception of smell, -living, apparently, in a world without odor at all.</p> - -<p>Dana said suddenly, "I named the boy Tom, after somebody I hate almost -as much as I hate you."</p> - -<p>Eudalia laid down her fork with a clatter and regarded Dana -disapprovingly. "Why take it out on Rog?" she asked bluntly. "He didn't -ask to come here any more than we did. He's got a wife back home. Maybe -you want him to fall in love with you? Maybe you're jealous because -he doesn't? Well, maybe he can't! And maybe it wouldn't work, the way -things are arranged here."</p> - -<p>"Thanks, Eudalia," said Tennant. "I think I can defend myself. But -she's right, Dana. We're as helpless as—laboratory animals. They have -the means to make us do whatever they want."</p> - -<p>"Rog," said Dana, looking suddenly scared, "I'm sorry I snapped at you. -I know it's not your fault. I'm—<i>changing</i>."</p> - -<p>He shook his head. "No, Dana, you're not changing. You're adapting. We -all are. We seem to be in a universe of different properties as well as -different dimensions. We're adjusting. I can do a thing or two myself -that seem absolutely impossible."</p> - -<p>"Are we really in the fourth dimension?" Dana asked. Of the three of -them, she alone had more than a high-school education.</p> - -<p>"We may be in the eleventh for all I know," he told her. "But I'll -settle for the fourth—a fourth dimension in space, if that makes -scientific sense, because we don't seem to have moved in time. I wasn't -sure of that, though, till we got the radio."</p> - -<p>"Why haven't they brought more of us through?" Eudalia asked, tamping -out ashes in a tray that might have been silver.</p> - -<p>"I'm not sure," he said thoughtfully. "I think it's hard for them. They -have a hell of a time bringing anyone through alive, and lately they -haven't brought anyone through—not alive."</p> - -<p>"Why do they do it—the other way, I mean?" asked Dana.</p> - -<p>Tennant shrugged. "I don't know. I've been thinking about it. I suppose -it's because they're pretty human."</p> - -<p>"<i>Human!</i>" Dana was outraged. "Do you call it human to—"</p> - -<p>"Hold on," he said. "They pass through their gateway to Earth at -considerable danger and, probably, expense of some kind. Some of them -don't come back. They kill those of us who put up a fight. Those who -don't—or can't—they bring back with them. Live or dead, we're just -laboratory specimens."</p> - -<p>"Maybe," Eudalia conceded doubtfully. Then her eyes blazed. "But the -things they do—stuffing people, mounting their heads, keeping them on -display in their—their whatever they live in. You call that human, -Rog?"</p> - -<p>"Were you ever in a big-game hunter's trophy room?" Tennant asked -quietly. "Or in a Museum of Natural History? A zoo? A naturalist's lab? -Or even, maybe, photographed as a baby on a bear-skin rug?"</p> - -<p>"I was," said Olga. "But that's not the same thing."</p> - -<p>"Of course not," he agreed. "In the one instance, <i>we're</i> the hunters, -the breeders, the trophy collectors. In the other"—he shrugged—"we're -the trophies."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There was a long silence. They finished eating and then Dana stood up -and said, "I'm going out on the lawn for a while." She unzipped her -golden gown, stepped out of it to reveal a pair of tartan shorts that -matched his, and a narrow halter.</p> - -<p>"You thought those up while we ate," he said. It annoyed him to be -copied, though he did not know why. She laughed at him silently, tossed -her auburn hair back from her face and went out of the roofless house, -holding the gold dress casually over her bare arm.</p> - -<p>Eudalia took him to the nursery. He was irritated now in another, -angrier way. The infants, protected by cellophane-like coverlets, were -asleep.</p> - -<p>"They never cry," the thin woman told him. "But they grow—God, how -they grow!"</p> - -<p>"Good," said Tennant, fighting down his anger. He kissed her, held -her close, although neither of them felt desire at the moment. Their -captors had seen to that; it wasn't Eudalia's turn. Tennant said, "I -wish I could do something about this. I hate seeing Dana so bitter and -Olga so scared. It isn't their fault."</p> - -<p>"And it's not yours," insisted Eudalia. "Don't let them make you think -it is."</p> - -<p>"I'll try not to," he said and stopped, realizing the family party was -over. He had felt the inner tug of command, said good-by to the women -and returned to his smaller compound within its own barrier dome.</p> - -<p>Then came the invisible aura of strain in the air, the shimmering -illusion of heat that was not heat, that was prelude to his -teleportation ... if that were the word. It was neither pleasant nor -unpleasant; it <i>was</i>, that was all.</p> - -<p>He called it the training hall, not because it looked like a training -hall but because that was its function. It didn't actually look like -anything save some half-nourished dream a surrealist might have -discarded as too nightmarish for belief.</p> - -<p>As in all of this strange universe, excepting the dome-cages in -which the captives were held, the training hall followed no rules of -three-dimensional space. One wall looked normal for perhaps a third of -its length, then it simply wasn't for a bit. It came back farther on -at an impossible angle. Yet, walking along it, touching it, it felt -perfectly smooth and continuously straight.</p> - -<p>The opposite wall resembled a diagonal cross-section of an asymmetrical -dumbbell—that was the closest Tennant could come to it in words. And -it, too, felt straight. The floor looked like crystal smashed by some -cosmic impact, yet it had reason. He <i>knew</i> this even though no reason -was apparent to his three-dimensional vision. The ceiling, where he -could see it, was beyond description.</p> - -<p>The captor Tennant called <i>Opal</i> came in through a far corner of -the ceiling. He—if it was a he—was not large, although this, -Tennant knew, meant nothing; Opal might extend thousands of yards in -some unseen direction. He had no regular shape and much of him was -iridescent and shot with constantly changing colors. Hence the name -Opal.</p> - -<p>Communication was telepathic. Tennant could have yodeled or yelled -or sung <i>Mississippi Mud</i> and Opal would have shown no reaction. Yet -Tennant suspected that the captors could hear somewhere along the -auditory scale, just as perhaps they could smell, although not in any -human sense.</p> - -<p><i>You will approach without use of your appendages.</i></p> - -<p>The command was as clear as if it had been spoken aloud. Tennant took a -deep breath. He thought of the space beside Opal. It took about three -seconds and he was there, having spanned a distance of some ninety -feet. He was getting good at it.</p> - -<p>Dog does trick, he thought.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He went through the entire routine at Opal's bidding. When at last -he was allowed to relax, he wondered, not for the first time, if he -weren't mastering some of the alleged Guru arts. At once he felt -probing investigation. Opal, like the rest of the captors, was as -curious as a cat—or a human being.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="342" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Tennant sat against a wall, drenched with sweat. There would be endless -repetition before his workout was done. On Earth, dogs were said to be -intellectually two-dimensional creatures. He wondered if they felt this -helpless futility when their masters taught them to heel, to point, to -retrieve.</p> - -<p>Some days later, the training routine was broken. He felt a sudden stir -of near-sick excitement as he received the thought:</p> - -<p><i>Now you are ready. We are going through at last.</i></p> - -<p>Opal was nervous, so much so that he revealed more than he intended. -Or perhaps that was his intent; Tennant could never be sure. They were -going through to Tennant's own dimension. He wondered briefly just what -his role was to be.</p> - -<p>He had little time to speculate before Opal seemed to envelop him. -There was the blurring wrench of forced teleportation and they were in -another room, a room which ended in a huge irregular passage that might -have been the interior of a giant concertina—or an old-fashioned kodak.</p> - -<p>He stood before a kidney-shaped object over whose jagged surface -colors played constantly. From Opal's thoughts it appeared to be some -sort of ultradimensional television set, but to Tennant it was as -incomprehensible as an oil painting to an animal.</p> - -<p>Opal was annoyed that Tennant could make nothing of it. Then came the -thought:</p> - -<p><i>What cover must your body have not to be conspicuous?</i></p> - -<p>Tennant wondered, cynically, what would happen if he were to demand -a costume of mediaeval motley, complete with Pied Piper's flute. He -received quick reproof that made his head ring as from a blow.</p> - -<p>He asked Opal where and when they were going, was informed that -he would soon emerge on Earth where he had left it. That told him -everything but the date and season. Opal, like the rest of the captors, -seemed to have no understanding of time in a human sense.</p> - -<p>Waiting, Tennant tried not to think of his wife, of the fact that he -hadn't seen her in—was it more than a year and a half on Earth? He -could have controlled his heartbeat with one of his new powers, but -that might have made Opal suspicious. He should be somewhat excited. -He allowed himself to be, though he obscured the reasons. He was going -to see his wife again ... and maybe he could trick his way into not -returning.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The maid who opened the door for him was new, although her eyes were -old. But she recognized him and stood aside to let him enter. There -must, he thought, still be pictures of him around. He wondered how -Agatha could afford a servant.</p> - -<p>"Is Mrs. Tennant in?" he asked.</p> - -<p>She shook her head and fright made twin stoplights of the rouge on her -cheeks as she shut the door behind him. He went into the living room, -directly to the long silver cigarette box on the coffee table. It was -proof of homecoming to fill his lungs with smoke he could <i>smell</i>. He -took another drag, saw the maid still in the doorway, staring.</p> - -<p>"There's no need for fright," he told her. "I believe I still own this -house." Then, "When do you expect Mrs. Tennant?"</p> - -<p>"She just called. She's on her way home from the club."</p> - -<p>Still looking frightened, she departed for the rear of the house. -Tennant stared after her puzzledly until the kitchen door swung shut -behind her. The club? What club?</p> - -<p>He shrugged, returned to the feeling of comfort that came from being -back here, about to see Agatha again, hold her close in no more than a -few minutes. And stay, his mind began to add eagerly, but he pushed the -thought down where Opal could not detect it.</p> - -<p>He took another deep, lung-filling drag on his cigarette, looked around -the room that was so important a part of his life. The three women back -there would be in a ghastly spot. He felt like a heel for wanting to -leave them there, then knew that he would try somehow to get them out. -Not, of course, anything that would endanger his remaining with Agatha; -the only way his captors would get him back would be as a taxidermist's -specimen.</p> - -<p>He realized, shocked and scared, that his thoughts of escape had -slipped past his mental censor, and he waited apprehensively for Opal -to strike. Nothing happened and he warily relaxed. Opal wasn't tapping -his thoughts. Because he felt sure of his captive ... or because he -couldn't on Earth?</p> - -<p>It was like being let out of a cage. Tennant grinned at the bookcase; -the ebony-and-ivory elephants that Agatha had never liked were gone, -but he'd get them back or another pair. The credenza had been replaced -by a huge and ugly television console. That, he resolved, would go down -in the cellar rumpus room, where its bleached modernity wouldn't clash -with the casual antiquity of the living room.</p> - -<p>Agatha would complain, naturally, but his being back would make up for -any amount of furniture shifting. He imagined her standing close to -him, her lovely face lifted to be kissed, and his heart lurched like an -adolescent's. This hunger was real, not implanted. Everything would be -real ... his love for her, the food he ate, the things he touched, his -house, his life....</p> - -<p><i>Your wife and a man are approaching the house.</i></p> - -<p>The thought message from Opal crumbled his illusion of freedom. He sank -down in a chair, trying to refuse to listen to the rest of the command:</p> - -<p><i>You are to bring the man through the gateway with you. We want another -live male.</i></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Tennant shook his head, stiff and defiant in his chair. The punishment, -when it came, was more humiliating than a slap across a dog's snout. -Opal had been too interested in the next lab specimen to bother about -his thoughts—that was why he had been free to think of escape.</p> - -<p>Tennant closed his eyes, willed himself to the front window. Now that -he had mastered teleportation, it was incredible how much easier it was -in his own world. He had covered the two miles from the gateway to the -house in a mere seven jumps, the distance to the window in an instant. -But there was no pleasure in it, only a confirmation of his captor's -power over him.</p> - -<p>He was not free of them. He understood all too well what they wanted -him to do; he was to play the Judas goat ... or rather the Judas ram, -leading another victim to the fourth-dimensional pen.</p> - -<p>Grim, he watched the swoop of headlights in the driveway and returned -to the coffee table, lit a fresh cigarette.</p> - -<p>The front door was flung open and his diaphragm tightened at the -remembered sound of Agatha's throaty laugh ... and tightened further -when it was followed by a deeper rumbling laugh. Sudden fear made the -cigarette shake in his fingers.</p> - -<p>"... Don't be such a stuffed-shirt, darling." Agatha's mocking -sweetness rang alarm-gongs in Tennant's memory. "Charley wasn't making -a grab for <i>me</i>. He'd had one too many and only wanted a little fun. -Really, darling, you seem to think that a girl...."</p> - -<p>Her voice faded out as she saw Tennant standing there. She was wearing -a white strapless gown, had a blue-red-and-gold Mandarin jacket slung -hussar-fashion over her left shoulder. She looked even sleeker, better -groomed, more assured than his memory of her.</p> - -<p>"I'm no stuffed-shirt and you know it." Cass' tone was peevish. "But -your idea of fun, Agatha, is pretty damn...."</p> - -<p>It was his turn to freeze. Unbelieving, Tennant studied his successor. -Cass Gordon—the <i>man</i>, the ex-halfback whose bulk was beginning to get -out of hand, but whose inherent aggressive grace had not yet deserted -him. The <i>man</i>, that was all—unless one threw in the little black -mustache and the smooth salesman's manner.</p> - -<p>"You know, Cass," Tennant said quietly, "I never for a moment dreamed -it would be you."</p> - -<p>"<i>Roger!</i>" Agatha found her voice. "You're <i>alive</i>!"</p> - -<p>"Roger," repeated Tennant viciously. He felt sick with disgust. Maybe -he should have expected a triangle, but somehow he hadn't. And here -it was, with all of them going through their paces like a trio of -tent-show actors. He said, "For God's sake, sit down."</p> - -<p>Agatha did so hesitantly. Her huge dark eyes, invariably clear -and limpid no matter how much she had drunk, flickered toward him -furtively. She said defensively, "I had detectives looking for you for -six months. Where have you been, Rog? Smashing up the car like that -and—disappearing! I've been out of my mind."</p> - -<p>"Sorry," said Tennant. "I've had my troubles, too." Agatha was scared -stiff—of him. Probably with reason. He looked again at Cass Gordon and -found that he suddenly didn't care. She couldn't say it was loneliness. -Women have waited longer than eighteen months. He would have if his -captors had let him.</p> - -<p>"Where in hell <i>have</i> you been, Rog?" Gordon's tone was almost -parental. "I don't suppose it's news to you, but there was a lot of -suspicion directed your way while that crazy killer was operating -around here. Agatha and I managed to clear you."</p> - -<p>"Decent of you," said Tennant. He got up, crossed to the cabinet that -served as a bar. It was fully equipped—with more expensive liquor, he -noticed, than he had ever been able to afford. He poured a drink of -brandy, waited for the others to fill their glasses.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Agatha looked at him over the rim of hers. "Tell us, Rog. We have a -right to know. I do, anyway."</p> - -<p>"One question first," he said. "What about those killings? Have there -been any lately?"</p> - -<p>"Not for over a year," Cass told him. "They never did get the devil who -skinned those bodies and removed the heads."</p> - -<p>So, Tennant thought, they hadn't used the gateway. Not since they had -brought the four of them through, not since they had begun to train him -for his Judas ram duties.</p> - -<p>Agatha was asking him if he had been abroad.</p> - -<p>"In a way," he replied unemotionally. "Sorry if I've worried you, -Agatha, but my life has been rather—indefinite, since I—left."</p> - -<p>He was standing no more than four inches from this woman he had desired -desperately for six years, and he no longer wanted her. He was acutely -conscious of her perfume. It wrapped them both like an exotic blanket, -and it repelled him. He studied the firm clear flesh of her cheek and -chin, the arch of nostril, the carmine fullness of lower lip, the -swell of bosom above low-cut gown. And he no longer wanted any of it or -of her. Cass Gordon—</p> - -<p>It didn't have to be anybody at all. For it to be Cass Gordon was -revolting.</p> - -<p>"Rog," she said and her voice trembled, "what are we going to do? What -do you <i>want</i> to do?"</p> - -<p>Take her back? He smiled ironically; she wouldn't know what that meant. -It would serve her right, but maybe there was another way.</p> - -<p>"I don't know about you," he said, "but I suspect we're in the same -boat. I also have other interests."</p> - -<p>"You louse!" said Cass Gordon, arching rib cage and nostrils. "If you -try to make trouble for Agatha, I can promise...."</p> - -<p>"<i>What</i> can you promise?" demanded Tennant. When Gordon's onset -subsided in mumbles, he added, "Actually, I don't think I'm capable of -making more than a fraction of the trouble for either of you that you -both are qualified to make for yourselves."</p> - -<p>He lit a cigarette, inhaled. "Relax. I'm not planning revenge. After -this evening, I plan to vanish for good. Of course, Agatha, that -offers you a minor nuisance. You will have to wait six years to marry -Cass—seven years if the maid who let me in tonight talks. That's the -law, isn't it, Cass? You probably had it all figured out."</p> - -<p>"You bastard," said Cass. "You dirty bastard! You know what a wait like -that could do to us."</p> - -<p>"Tristan and Isolde," said Tennant, grinning almost happily. "Well, -I've had my little say. Now I'm off again. Cass, would you give me a -lift? I have a conveyance of sorts a couple of miles down the road."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He needed no telepathic powers to read the thoughts around him then. He -heard Agatha's quick intake of breath, saw the split-second look she -exchanged with Cass. He turned away, knowing that she was imploring her -lover to do something, <i>anything</i>, as long as it was safe.</p> - -<p>Deliberately, Tennant poured himself a second drink. This might be -easier and pleasanter than he had expected. They deserved some of the -suffering he had had and there was a chance that they might get it.</p> - -<p>Tennant knew now why he was the only male human the captors had been -able to take alive. Apparently, thanks to the rain-slick road, he had -run the sedan into a tree at the foot of the hill beyond the river. He -had been sitting there, unconscious, ripe fruit on their doorstep. They -had simply picked him up.</p> - -<p>Otherwise, apparently, men were next to impossible for them to capture. -All they could do was kill them and bring back their heads and hides -as trophies. With women it was different—perhaps the captors' weapons, -whatever they were, worked more efficiently on females. A difference in -body chemistry or psychology, perhaps.</p> - -<p>More than once, during his long training with Opal, Tennant had sent -questing thoughts toward his captor, asking why they didn't simply set -up the gateway in some town or city and take as many humans as they -wanted.</p> - -<p>Surprisingly there had been a definite fear reaction. As nearly as he -could understand, it had been like asking an African pygmy, armed with -a blowgun, to set up shop in the midst of a herd of wild elephants. It -simply wasn't feasible—and furthermore he derived an impression of the -tenuosity as well as the immovability of the gateway itself.</p> - -<p>They could be hurt, even killed by humans in a three-dimensional world. -How? Tennant did not know. Perhaps as a man can cut finger or even -throat on the edge of a near-two-dimensional piece of paper. It took -valor for them to hunt men in the world of men. In that fact lay a key -to their character—if such utterly alien creatures could be said to -have character.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Cass Gordon was smiling at him, saying something about one for the -road. Tennant accepted only because it was luxury to drink liquor that -smelled and tasted as liquor should. He raised his glass to Agatha, -said, "I may turn up again, but it's unlikely, so have yourself a time, -honey."</p> - -<p>"Oh, Rog!" said Agatha and her eyes were fraudulently wet. Tennant felt -pure contempt. She knew that Cass intended to try to kill him—and she -couldn't play it straight. She had to ham it up with false emotion, -even though she had silently pleaded with her lover to do something, -anything. He put down his empty glass. The thought that he had spent -eighteen months yearning for this she-Smithfield like a half-damp puppy -made him almost physically ill.</p> - -<p>"You'll make out," he told her with savage sincerity. In her way, in -accord with her desires, Agatha would. At bottom she was, he realized, -as primitive, as realistic, as the three who waited beyond the gateway. -An ex-waitress, an ex-forewoman, an ex-model of mediocre success—and -Agatha. He tried to visualize his wife as a member of his involuntary -harem and realized that she would adapt as readily as the other women. -But he didn't want her.</p> - -<p>He turned away and said, "Ready, Cass?"</p> - -<p>"Right with you," the ex-halfback replied, hurrying toward the hall. -Tennant considered, took another drink for his own road. The signals -had been given, the game was being readied. He had no wish to upset the -planning. He had some plans also, and theirs gave his enough moral -justification to satisfy his usually troublesome conscience.</p> - -<p>Agatha put her arms around his neck. She was warm and soft and moist -of lip and playing her part with obvious enjoyment of its bathos. She -murmured, "I'm so sorry, Rog, darling—"</p> - -<p>"Cut!" he said almost in a snarl and wrenched free. He brought out a -handkerchief—he had remembered to have one created, praise Allah—and -rubbed lipstick from his face. He tossed the handkerchief to Agatha.</p> - -<p>"You might have this analyzed," he told her lightly. "It could be -interesting. The handkerchief, not the lipstick."</p> - -<p>"I'm glad you're going!" she blazed, although her voice was low. "I'm -<i>glad</i> you're going. I hope you <i>never</i> come back."</p> - -<p>"That," he told her, "makes exactly two of us. Have fun."</p> - -<p>He went out into the hall, where Cass was waiting, wearing what was -intended to be a smile. They went out to the car together—it was a big -convertible—and Cass got behind the wheel. He said, "Where to, old -man?"</p> - -<p>"The Upham Road," said Tennant, feeling nothing at all.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Cass got the car under way and Tennant sensed them coming through. They -warned him that his chauffeur was carrying a weapon concealed in an -inside pocket.</p> - -<p><i>As if I didn't know!</i> Tennant snapped back at them.</p> - -<p>Cass tried to drive him past the spot beyond the bridge where the -gateway lay hidden in its armor of invisibility. He evidently planned -to go miles from the house before doing whatever he had decided to do.</p> - -<p>Tennant thought he knew. It would involve riding the back roads like -this one for fifteen or twenty miles, perhaps farther. He suspected -that the quarry pond in South Upham was his intended destination. There -would be plenty of loose rock handy with which to weigh down his body -before dumping it into the water.</p> - -<p>If it were recovered, Cass and Agatha could alibi one another. In view -of his earlier disappearance, this would be simple. Of course there -was the maid, but Cass had enough money and smooth talk to manage that -angle. They could undoubtedly get away with killing him.</p> - -<p>"Stop," said Tennant, just across the bridge.</p> - -<p>"What for?" Cass countered and Tennant knew it was time to act. He -wrenched the key from the ignition switch, tossed it out of the car. -Cass braked, demanded, "What in hell did you do <i>that</i> for?"</p> - -<p>"I get out here," Tennant said. "You didn't stop."</p> - -<p>"Okay, if that's the way you want it." Cass' heavy right hand, the -little black hairs on its back clearly visible in the dashboard light, -moved toward his inside pocket.</p> - -<p>Tennant teleported to the side of the road, became a half-visible shade -against the darkness of the trees. He felt Opal's excitement surge -through his brain, knew that from then on his timing would have to be -split-second perfect.</p> - -<p>It seemed to him as if all the inchoate thoughts, all the vague -theories, all the half-formed plans of more than a year had -crystalized. For the first time since his capture, he not only knew -what he wanted to do—but saw the faint glimmer of a chance of doing it -successfully.</p> - -<p>He was going to try to lead Cass to the gateway, maneuver him -inside—and then escape. They wouldn't get Tennant; the power of -teleportation they themselves had given him would keep him from being -captured again. It would work. He was sure of it. They'd have their -male specimen and he'd be free ... not to go back to Agatha, because he -wouldn't, but to help the three women to get back, too.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Cass was plunging after him now, pistol in hand, shouting. Tennant -could have him killed now, have him flayed and decapitated as other -male victims had been. Opal might even give him the hide as a reward -after it was treated. Some Oriental potentate, Tennant reflected, might -relish having his wife's lover as a rug on his living room floor. -Tennant preferred the less operatic revenge of leaving Cass and Agatha -alive to suffer.</p> - -<p>He teleported farther into the trees, closer to the gateway, plotting -carefully his next moves. Cass was crashing along, cursing in -frustration.</p> - -<p>"Stand still, damn you! You shift around like a ghost!"</p> - -<p>Tennant realized with sudden terror that Cass might give up, unable -to solve his prey's abrupt appearances and disappearances. He needed -encouragement to keep him going.</p> - -<p>Jeeringly, Tennant paused, simultaneously thumbed his nose and stuck -out his tongue at Cass. The scornful childishness of the gesture -enraged Cass more than the worst verbal insult could have. He yelled -his anger and fired at Tennant. There was no way to miss, but Tennant -was five yards farther on before the explosion ended.</p> - -<p>"Calm down," he advised quietly. "Getting mad always spoils your aim."</p> - -<p>That, naturally, made Cass even angrier. He fired viciously twice more -before Tennant reached the gateway, both times without a chance of -hitting his elusive target.</p> - -<p>Opal, Tennant discovered, was almost as frantic as Cass. He was deep -inside the passage, jittering visibly in his excitement, in his -anticipation of the most important bag his species had yet made on -Earth. And there was something else in his thoughts....</p> - -<p>Anxiety. Fear. The gateway was vulnerable to third-dimensional weapons. -Where the concertina-like passage came into contact with Earth, there -was a belt, perhaps a foot in width, which was spanned by some sort of -force-webbing. Opal was afraid that a bullet might strike the webbing -and destroy the gateway.</p> - -<p>Cass was getting closer. It would be so easy ... keep teleporting, -bewilder him, let him make a grab ... and then skip a hundred yards -away just as the gateway shut. He would be outside, Cass inside.</p> - -<p>And the three women? Leave them with Cass? Leave the gateway open for -more live or mounted specimens?</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus3.jpg" width="600" height="152" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Tennant concentrated on the zone of strain at the point of dimensional -contact, was there directly in front of it. Cass, cursing, lunged clear -of the underbrush outside, saw Tennant there. Tennant was crouching -low, not moving, staring mockingly at him. He lifted the automatic and -fired.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Tennant teleported by inches instead of yards, and so blood oozed from -a graze on his left ear when he rejoined a shaken Opal in the world -that knew no night. For a long time—how long, of course, he could not -know—they stood and watched the gateway burn to globular ash in a dark -brown fire that radiated searing cold.</p> - -<p>Opal was in trouble. An aura of anger, of grief, of accusation, -surrounded him. Others of them came and for a while Tennant was -forgotten. Then, abruptly, he was back in his own compound, walking -toward the house.</p> - -<p>In place of his country Napoleonic roll-bed, which he had visualized -for manufacture with special care, Dana had substituted an immense -modern sleeping device that looked like a low hassock with a ten-foot -diameter. She was on her knees, her back toward the door, fiddling with -a radio.</p> - -<p>She heard him enter, said without turning, "It won't work. Just a -little while ago it stopped."</p> - -<p>"I think we're cut off now, perhaps for good," he told her. He sat -down on the edge of the absurd bed and began to take off the clothes -they had given him for the hunt. He was too tired to protest against -the massacre of his bedroom decor. He was not even sure he wanted to -protest. For all its anachronism, the big round bed was comfortable.</p> - -<p>She watched him, her hands on her thighs, and there was worry written -on her broad forehead. "You know something, Rog."</p> - -<p>"I don't <i>know</i> anything," he replied. "I only think and have -theories." Unexpectedly he found himself telling her all about it, -about himself, where he had been, what he had done.</p> - -<p>She listened quietly, saying nothing, letting him go on. His head was -in her lap and he talked up to her while she ran gentle fingers through -his hair. When he had finished, she smiled down at him thoughtfully, -affectionately, then said, "You know, you're a funny kind of man, -Roger."</p> - -<p>"Funny?"</p> - -<p>She cuffed him gently. "You know what I mean. So now we're really cut -off in this place—you and me and little Tom and Olga and Eudalia and -the twins. What are we going to do, Roger?"</p> - -<p>He shrugged. He was very tired. "Whatever they'll let us do," he said -through a yawn. "Maybe we can make this a two-way study. They are -almost human, you know. Almost." He pulled her down and kissed her and -felt unexpected contentment decant through his veins. He knew now that -things had worked out the right way, the only way. He added aloud, "I -think we'll find ways to keep ourselves amused."</p> - -<p>"You really enjoy playing the heel, don't you, Rog?" Her lips moved -against his as she spoke. "You had a chance to get out of here. You -could have changed places with Cass. Maybe you could have destroyed the -gateway and stayed on the other side and still saved other victims. But -no, you had to come back to—us. I think I'm going to be in love with -you for that."</p> - -<p>He sat up on one elbow and looked down at her half angrily. "Are you -trying to make a goddam hero out of me?" he asked.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Judas Ram, by Sam Merwin - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDAS RAM *** - -***** This file should be named 51053-h.htm or 51053-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/0/5/51053/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Judas Ram - -Author: Sam Merwin - -Release Date: January 27, 2016 [EBook #51053] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDAS RAM *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - JUDAS RAM - - BY SAM MERWIN, Jr. - - Illustrated by JAMES VINCENT - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Galaxy Science Fiction December 1950. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - - - The house was furnished with all - luxuries, including women. If it only - had a lease that could be broken-- - - -Roger Tennant, crossing the lawn, could see two of the three wings -of the house, which radiated spoke-like from its heptagonal central -portion. The wing on the left was white, with slim square pillars, -reminiscent of scores of movie sets of the Deep South. That on the -right was sundeck solar-house living-machine modern, something like a -montage of shoeboxes. The wing hidden by the rest of the house was, he -knew, spired, gabled and multicolored, like an ancient building in -pre-Hitler Cracow. - -Dana was lying under a tree near the door, stretched out on a sort -of deck chair with her eyes closed. She wore a golden gown, long and -close-fitting and slit up the leg like the gown of a Chinese woman. -Above it her comely face was sullen beneath its sleek cocoon of auburn -hair. - -She opened her eyes at his approach and regarded him with nothing like -favor. Involuntarily he glanced down at the tartan shorts that were his -only garment to make sure that they were on properly. They were. He had -thought them up in a moment of utter boredom and they were extremely -comfortable. However, the near-Buchanan tartan did not crease or even -wrinkle when he moved. Their captors had no idea of how a woven design -should behave. - -"Waiting for me?" Tennant asked the girl. - -She said, "I'd rather be dead. Maybe I am. Maybe we're all dead and -this is Hell." - -He stood over her and looked down until she turned away her reddening -face. He said, "So it's going to be you again, Dana. You'll be the -first to come back for a second run." - -"Don't flatter yourself," she replied angrily. She sat up, pushed -back her hair, got to her feet a trifle awkwardly because of the -tight-fitting tubular gown. "If I could do anything about it...." - -"But you can't," he told her. "They're too clever." - -"Is this crop rotation or did you send for me?" she asked cynically. -"If you did, I wish you hadn't. You haven't asked about your son." - -"I don't even want to think about him," said Tennant. "Let's get -on with it." He could sense the restless stirring of the woman -within Dana, just as he could feel the stirring toward her within -himself--desire that both of them loathed because it was implanted -within them by their captors. - -They walked toward the house. - - * * * * * - -It didn't look like a prison--or a cage. Within the dome of the -barrier, it looked more like a well-kept if bizarre little country -estate. There was clipped lawn, a scattering of trees, even a clear -little brook that chattered unending annoyance at the small stones -which impeded its flow. - -But the lawn was not of grass--it was of a bright green substance that -might have been cellophane but wasn't, and it sprouted from a fabric -that might have been canvas but was something else. The trees looked -like trees, only their trunks were bark all the way through--except -that it was not bark. The brook was practically water, but the small -stones over which it flowed were of no earthly mineral. - -They entered the house, which had no roof, continued to move beneath a -sky that glowed with light which did not come from a sun or moon. It -might have been a well-kept if bizarre little country estate, but it -wasn't. It was a prison, a cage. - -The other two women were sitting in the heptagonal central hall. -Eudalia, who had borne twin girls recently, was lying back, newly thin -and dark of skin and hair, smoking a scentless cigarette. A tall woman, -thirtyish, she wore a sort of shimmering green strapless evening gown. -Tennant wondered how she maintained it in place, for despite her recent -double motherhood, she was almost flat of bosom. He asked her how she -was feeling. - -"Okay, I guess," she said. "The way they manage it, there's nothing -to it." She had a flat, potentially raucous voice. Eudalia had been -a female foreman in a garment-cutting shop before being captured and -brought through. - -"Good," he said. "Glad to hear it." He felt oddly embarrassed. He -turned to Olga, broad, blonde and curiously vital, who sat perfectly -still, regarding him over the pregnant swell of her dirndl-clad waist. -Olga had been a waitress in a mining town hash-house near Scranton. - -Tennant wanted to put an encouraging hand on her shoulder, to say -something that might cheer her up, for she was by far the youngest of -the three female captives, barely nineteen. But with the eyes of the -other two, especially Dana, upon him, he could not. - -"I guess I wasn't cut out to be a Turk," he said. "I don't feel at ease -in a harem, even when it's supposedly my own." - -"You're not doing so badly," Dana replied acidly. - -"Lay off--he can't help it," said Eudalia unexpectedly. "He doesn't -like it any better than we do." - -"But he doesn't have to--have them," objected Olga. She had a trace of -Polish accent that was not unpleasant. In fact, Tennant thought, only -her laughter was unpleasant, a shrill, uncontrolled burst of staccato -sound that jarred him to his heels. Olga had not laughed of late, -however. She was too frightened. - - * * * * * - -"Let's get the meal ordered," said Dana and they were all silent, -thinking of what they wanted to eat but would not enjoy when it came. -Tennant finished with his order, then got busy with his surprise. - -It arrived before the meal, materializing against one of the seven -walls of the roofless chamber. It was a large cabinet on slender -straight legs that resembled dark polished wood. Tennant went to it, -opened a hingeless door and pushed a knob on the inner surface. At once -the air was hideous with the acerate harmony of a singing commercial.... - - ... so go soak your head, - be it gold, brown or red, - in Any-tone Shampoo! - -A disc jockey's buoyant tones cut in quickly as the final _ooooo_ -faded. "This is Grady Martin, your old night-owl, coming to you with -your requests over Station WZZX, Manhattan. Here's a wire from Theresa -McManus and the girls in the family entrance of Conaghan's Bar and -Grill on West...." - -Tennant watched the girls as a sweet-voiced crooner began to ply -an unfamiliar love lyric to a melody whose similarity to a thousand -predecessors doomed it to instant success. - -Olga sat up straight, her pale blue eyes round with utter disbelief. -She looked at the radio, at Tennant, at the other two women, then back -at the machine. She murmured something in Polish that was inaudible, -but her expression showed that it must have been wistful. - -Eudalia grinned at Tennant and, rising, did a sort of tap dance to the -music, then whirled back into her chair, green dress ashimmer, and sank -into it just to listen. - -Dana stood almost in the center of the room, carmine-tipped fingers -clasped beneath the swell of her breasts. She might have been listening -to Brahms or Debussy. Her eyes glowed with the salty brilliance of -emotion and she was almost beautiful. - -"_Rog!_" she cried softly when the music stopped. "A radio and WZZX! Is -it--are they--real?" - -"As real as you or I," he told her. "It took quite a bit of doing, -getting them to put a set together. And I wasn't sure that radio would -get through. TV doesn't seem to. Somehow it brings things closer...." - -Olga got up quite suddenly, went to the machine and, after frowning at -it for a moment, tuned in another station from which a Polish-speaking -announcer was followed by polka music. She leaned against the wall, -resting one smooth forearm on the top of the machine. Her eyes closed -and she swayed a little in time to the polka beat. - - * * * * * - -Tennant caught Dana looking at him and there was near approval in her -expression--approval that faded quickly as soon as she caught his gaze -upon her. The food arrived then and they sat down at the round table to -eat it. - -Tennant's meat looked like steak, it felt like steak, but, lacking the -aroma of steak, it was almost tasteless. This was so with all of their -foods, with their cigarettes, with everything in their prison--or their -cage. Their captors were utterly without a human conception of smell, -living, apparently, in a world without odor at all. - -Dana said suddenly, "I named the boy Tom, after somebody I hate almost -as much as I hate you." - -Eudalia laid down her fork with a clatter and regarded Dana -disapprovingly. "Why take it out on Rog?" she asked bluntly. "He didn't -ask to come here any more than we did. He's got a wife back home. Maybe -you want him to fall in love with you? Maybe you're jealous because -he doesn't? Well, maybe he can't! And maybe it wouldn't work, the way -things are arranged here." - -"Thanks, Eudalia," said Tennant. "I think I can defend myself. But -she's right, Dana. We're as helpless as--laboratory animals. They have -the means to make us do whatever they want." - -"Rog," said Dana, looking suddenly scared, "I'm sorry I snapped at you. -I know it's not your fault. I'm--_changing_." - -He shook his head. "No, Dana, you're not changing. You're adapting. We -all are. We seem to be in a universe of different properties as well as -different dimensions. We're adjusting. I can do a thing or two myself -that seem absolutely impossible." - -"Are we really in the fourth dimension?" Dana asked. Of the three of -them, she alone had more than a high-school education. - -"We may be in the eleventh for all I know," he told her. "But I'll -settle for the fourth--a fourth dimension in space, if that makes -scientific sense, because we don't seem to have moved in time. I wasn't -sure of that, though, till we got the radio." - -"Why haven't they brought more of us through?" Eudalia asked, tamping -out ashes in a tray that might have been silver. - -"I'm not sure," he said thoughtfully. "I think it's hard for them. They -have a hell of a time bringing anyone through alive, and lately they -haven't brought anyone through--not alive." - -"Why do they do it--the other way, I mean?" asked Dana. - -Tennant shrugged. "I don't know. I've been thinking about it. I suppose -it's because they're pretty human." - -"_Human!_" Dana was outraged. "Do you call it human to--" - -"Hold on," he said. "They pass through their gateway to Earth at -considerable danger and, probably, expense of some kind. Some of them -don't come back. They kill those of us who put up a fight. Those who -don't--or can't--they bring back with them. Live or dead, we're just -laboratory specimens." - -"Maybe," Eudalia conceded doubtfully. Then her eyes blazed. "But the -things they do--stuffing people, mounting their heads, keeping them on -display in their--their whatever they live in. You call that human, -Rog?" - -"Were you ever in a big-game hunter's trophy room?" Tennant asked -quietly. "Or in a Museum of Natural History? A zoo? A naturalist's lab? -Or even, maybe, photographed as a baby on a bear-skin rug?" - -"I was," said Olga. "But that's not the same thing." - -"Of course not," he agreed. "In the one instance, _we're_ the hunters, -the breeders, the trophy collectors. In the other"--he shrugged--"we're -the trophies." - - * * * * * - -There was a long silence. They finished eating and then Dana stood up -and said, "I'm going out on the lawn for a while." She unzipped her -golden gown, stepped out of it to reveal a pair of tartan shorts that -matched his, and a narrow halter. - -"You thought those up while we ate," he said. It annoyed him to be -copied, though he did not know why. She laughed at him silently, tossed -her auburn hair back from her face and went out of the roofless house, -holding the gold dress casually over her bare arm. - -Eudalia took him to the nursery. He was irritated now in another, -angrier way. The infants, protected by cellophane-like coverlets, were -asleep. - -"They never cry," the thin woman told him. "But they grow--God, how -they grow!" - -"Good," said Tennant, fighting down his anger. He kissed her, held -her close, although neither of them felt desire at the moment. Their -captors had seen to that; it wasn't Eudalia's turn. Tennant said, "I -wish I could do something about this. I hate seeing Dana so bitter and -Olga so scared. It isn't their fault." - -"And it's not yours," insisted Eudalia. "Don't let them make you think -it is." - -"I'll try not to," he said and stopped, realizing the family party was -over. He had felt the inner tug of command, said good-by to the women -and returned to his smaller compound within its own barrier dome. - -Then came the invisible aura of strain in the air, the shimmering -illusion of heat that was not heat, that was prelude to his -teleportation ... if that were the word. It was neither pleasant nor -unpleasant; it _was_, that was all. - -He called it the training hall, not because it looked like a training -hall but because that was its function. It didn't actually look like -anything save some half-nourished dream a surrealist might have -discarded as too nightmarish for belief. - -As in all of this strange universe, excepting the dome-cages in -which the captives were held, the training hall followed no rules of -three-dimensional space. One wall looked normal for perhaps a third of -its length, then it simply wasn't for a bit. It came back farther on -at an impossible angle. Yet, walking along it, touching it, it felt -perfectly smooth and continuously straight. - -The opposite wall resembled a diagonal cross-section of an asymmetrical -dumbbell--that was the closest Tennant could come to it in words. And -it, too, felt straight. The floor looked like crystal smashed by some -cosmic impact, yet it had reason. He _knew_ this even though no reason -was apparent to his three-dimensional vision. The ceiling, where he -could see it, was beyond description. - -The captor Tennant called _Opal_ came in through a far corner of -the ceiling. He--if it was a he--was not large, although this, -Tennant knew, meant nothing; Opal might extend thousands of yards in -some unseen direction. He had no regular shape and much of him was -iridescent and shot with constantly changing colors. Hence the name -Opal. - -Communication was telepathic. Tennant could have yodeled or yelled -or sung _Mississippi Mud_ and Opal would have shown no reaction. Yet -Tennant suspected that the captors could hear somewhere along the -auditory scale, just as perhaps they could smell, although not in any -human sense. - -_You will approach without use of your appendages._ - -The command was as clear as if it had been spoken aloud. Tennant took a -deep breath. He thought of the space beside Opal. It took about three -seconds and he was there, having spanned a distance of some ninety -feet. He was getting good at it. - -Dog does trick, he thought. - - * * * * * - -He went through the entire routine at Opal's bidding. When at last -he was allowed to relax, he wondered, not for the first time, if he -weren't mastering some of the alleged Guru arts. At once he felt -probing investigation. Opal, like the rest of the captors, was as -curious as a cat--or a human being. - -Tennant sat against a wall, drenched with sweat. There would be endless -repetition before his workout was done. On Earth, dogs were said to be -intellectually two-dimensional creatures. He wondered if they felt this -helpless futility when their masters taught them to heel, to point, to -retrieve. - -Some days later, the training routine was broken. He felt a sudden stir -of near-sick excitement as he received the thought: - -_Now you are ready. We are going through at last._ - -Opal was nervous, so much so that he revealed more than he intended. -Or perhaps that was his intent; Tennant could never be sure. They were -going through to Tennant's own dimension. He wondered briefly just what -his role was to be. - -He had little time to speculate before Opal seemed to envelop him. -There was the blurring wrench of forced teleportation and they were in -another room, a room which ended in a huge irregular passage that might -have been the interior of a giant concertina--or an old-fashioned kodak. - -He stood before a kidney-shaped object over whose jagged surface -colors played constantly. From Opal's thoughts it appeared to be some -sort of ultradimensional television set, but to Tennant it was as -incomprehensible as an oil painting to an animal. - -Opal was annoyed that Tennant could make nothing of it. Then came the -thought: - -_What cover must your body have not to be conspicuous?_ - -Tennant wondered, cynically, what would happen if he were to demand -a costume of mediaeval motley, complete with Pied Piper's flute. He -received quick reproof that made his head ring as from a blow. - -He asked Opal where and when they were going, was informed that -he would soon emerge on Earth where he had left it. That told him -everything but the date and season. Opal, like the rest of the captors, -seemed to have no understanding of time in a human sense. - -Waiting, Tennant tried not to think of his wife, of the fact that he -hadn't seen her in--was it more than a year and a half on Earth? He -could have controlled his heartbeat with one of his new powers, but -that might have made Opal suspicious. He should be somewhat excited. -He allowed himself to be, though he obscured the reasons. He was going -to see his wife again ... and maybe he could trick his way into not -returning. - - * * * * * - -The maid who opened the door for him was new, although her eyes were -old. But she recognized him and stood aside to let him enter. There -must, he thought, still be pictures of him around. He wondered how -Agatha could afford a servant. - -"Is Mrs. Tennant in?" he asked. - -She shook her head and fright made twin stoplights of the rouge on her -cheeks as she shut the door behind him. He went into the living room, -directly to the long silver cigarette box on the coffee table. It was -proof of homecoming to fill his lungs with smoke he could _smell_. He -took another drag, saw the maid still in the doorway, staring. - -"There's no need for fright," he told her. "I believe I still own this -house." Then, "When do you expect Mrs. Tennant?" - -"She just called. She's on her way home from the club." - -Still looking frightened, she departed for the rear of the house. -Tennant stared after her puzzledly until the kitchen door swung shut -behind her. The club? What club? - -He shrugged, returned to the feeling of comfort that came from being -back here, about to see Agatha again, hold her close in no more than a -few minutes. And stay, his mind began to add eagerly, but he pushed the -thought down where Opal could not detect it. - -He took another deep, lung-filling drag on his cigarette, looked around -the room that was so important a part of his life. The three women back -there would be in a ghastly spot. He felt like a heel for wanting to -leave them there, then knew that he would try somehow to get them out. -Not, of course, anything that would endanger his remaining with Agatha; -the only way his captors would get him back would be as a taxidermist's -specimen. - -He realized, shocked and scared, that his thoughts of escape had -slipped past his mental censor, and he waited apprehensively for Opal -to strike. Nothing happened and he warily relaxed. Opal wasn't tapping -his thoughts. Because he felt sure of his captive ... or because he -couldn't on Earth? - -It was like being let out of a cage. Tennant grinned at the bookcase; -the ebony-and-ivory elephants that Agatha had never liked were gone, -but he'd get them back or another pair. The credenza had been replaced -by a huge and ugly television console. That, he resolved, would go down -in the cellar rumpus room, where its bleached modernity wouldn't clash -with the casual antiquity of the living room. - -Agatha would complain, naturally, but his being back would make up for -any amount of furniture shifting. He imagined her standing close to -him, her lovely face lifted to be kissed, and his heart lurched like an -adolescent's. This hunger was real, not implanted. Everything would be -real ... his love for her, the food he ate, the things he touched, his -house, his life.... - -_Your wife and a man are approaching the house._ - -The thought message from Opal crumbled his illusion of freedom. He sank -down in a chair, trying to refuse to listen to the rest of the command: - -_You are to bring the man through the gateway with you. We want another -live male._ - - * * * * * - -Tennant shook his head, stiff and defiant in his chair. The punishment, -when it came, was more humiliating than a slap across a dog's snout. -Opal had been too interested in the next lab specimen to bother about -his thoughts--that was why he had been free to think of escape. - -Tennant closed his eyes, willed himself to the front window. Now that -he had mastered teleportation, it was incredible how much easier it was -in his own world. He had covered the two miles from the gateway to the -house in a mere seven jumps, the distance to the window in an instant. -But there was no pleasure in it, only a confirmation of his captor's -power over him. - -He was not free of them. He understood all too well what they wanted -him to do; he was to play the Judas goat ... or rather the Judas ram, -leading another victim to the fourth-dimensional pen. - -Grim, he watched the swoop of headlights in the driveway and returned -to the coffee table, lit a fresh cigarette. - -The front door was flung open and his diaphragm tightened at the -remembered sound of Agatha's throaty laugh ... and tightened further -when it was followed by a deeper rumbling laugh. Sudden fear made the -cigarette shake in his fingers. - -"... Don't be such a stuffed-shirt, darling." Agatha's mocking -sweetness rang alarm-gongs in Tennant's memory. "Charley wasn't making -a grab for _me_. He'd had one too many and only wanted a little fun. -Really, darling, you seem to think that a girl...." - -Her voice faded out as she saw Tennant standing there. She was wearing -a white strapless gown, had a blue-red-and-gold Mandarin jacket slung -hussar-fashion over her left shoulder. She looked even sleeker, better -groomed, more assured than his memory of her. - -"I'm no stuffed-shirt and you know it." Cass' tone was peevish. "But -your idea of fun, Agatha, is pretty damn...." - -It was his turn to freeze. Unbelieving, Tennant studied his successor. -Cass Gordon--the _man_, the ex-halfback whose bulk was beginning to get -out of hand, but whose inherent aggressive grace had not yet deserted -him. The _man_, that was all--unless one threw in the little black -mustache and the smooth salesman's manner. - -"You know, Cass," Tennant said quietly, "I never for a moment dreamed -it would be you." - -"_Roger!_" Agatha found her voice. "You're _alive_!" - -"Roger," repeated Tennant viciously. He felt sick with disgust. Maybe -he should have expected a triangle, but somehow he hadn't. And here -it was, with all of them going through their paces like a trio of -tent-show actors. He said, "For God's sake, sit down." - -Agatha did so hesitantly. Her huge dark eyes, invariably clear -and limpid no matter how much she had drunk, flickered toward him -furtively. She said defensively, "I had detectives looking for you for -six months. Where have you been, Rog? Smashing up the car like that -and--disappearing! I've been out of my mind." - -"Sorry," said Tennant. "I've had my troubles, too." Agatha was scared -stiff--of him. Probably with reason. He looked again at Cass Gordon and -found that he suddenly didn't care. She couldn't say it was loneliness. -Women have waited longer than eighteen months. He would have if his -captors had let him. - -"Where in hell _have_ you been, Rog?" Gordon's tone was almost -parental. "I don't suppose it's news to you, but there was a lot of -suspicion directed your way while that crazy killer was operating -around here. Agatha and I managed to clear you." - -"Decent of you," said Tennant. He got up, crossed to the cabinet that -served as a bar. It was fully equipped--with more expensive liquor, he -noticed, than he had ever been able to afford. He poured a drink of -brandy, waited for the others to fill their glasses. - - * * * * * - -Agatha looked at him over the rim of hers. "Tell us, Rog. We have a -right to know. I do, anyway." - -"One question first," he said. "What about those killings? Have there -been any lately?" - -"Not for over a year," Cass told him. "They never did get the devil who -skinned those bodies and removed the heads." - -So, Tennant thought, they hadn't used the gateway. Not since they had -brought the four of them through, not since they had begun to train him -for his Judas ram duties. - -Agatha was asking him if he had been abroad. - -"In a way," he replied unemotionally. "Sorry if I've worried you, -Agatha, but my life has been rather--indefinite, since I--left." - -He was standing no more than four inches from this woman he had desired -desperately for six years, and he no longer wanted her. He was acutely -conscious of her perfume. It wrapped them both like an exotic blanket, -and it repelled him. He studied the firm clear flesh of her cheek and -chin, the arch of nostril, the carmine fullness of lower lip, the -swell of bosom above low-cut gown. And he no longer wanted any of it or -of her. Cass Gordon-- - -It didn't have to be anybody at all. For it to be Cass Gordon was -revolting. - -"Rog," she said and her voice trembled, "what are we going to do? What -do you _want_ to do?" - -Take her back? He smiled ironically; she wouldn't know what that meant. -It would serve her right, but maybe there was another way. - -"I don't know about you," he said, "but I suspect we're in the same -boat. I also have other interests." - -"You louse!" said Cass Gordon, arching rib cage and nostrils. "If you -try to make trouble for Agatha, I can promise...." - -"_What_ can you promise?" demanded Tennant. When Gordon's onset -subsided in mumbles, he added, "Actually, I don't think I'm capable of -making more than a fraction of the trouble for either of you that you -both are qualified to make for yourselves." - -He lit a cigarette, inhaled. "Relax. I'm not planning revenge. After -this evening, I plan to vanish for good. Of course, Agatha, that -offers you a minor nuisance. You will have to wait six years to marry -Cass--seven years if the maid who let me in tonight talks. That's the -law, isn't it, Cass? You probably had it all figured out." - -"You bastard," said Cass. "You dirty bastard! You know what a wait like -that could do to us." - -"Tristan and Isolde," said Tennant, grinning almost happily. "Well, -I've had my little say. Now I'm off again. Cass, would you give me a -lift? I have a conveyance of sorts a couple of miles down the road." - - * * * * * - -He needed no telepathic powers to read the thoughts around him then. He -heard Agatha's quick intake of breath, saw the split-second look she -exchanged with Cass. He turned away, knowing that she was imploring her -lover to do something, _anything_, as long as it was safe. - -Deliberately, Tennant poured himself a second drink. This might be -easier and pleasanter than he had expected. They deserved some of the -suffering he had had and there was a chance that they might get it. - -Tennant knew now why he was the only male human the captors had been -able to take alive. Apparently, thanks to the rain-slick road, he had -run the sedan into a tree at the foot of the hill beyond the river. He -had been sitting there, unconscious, ripe fruit on their doorstep. They -had simply picked him up. - -Otherwise, apparently, men were next to impossible for them to capture. -All they could do was kill them and bring back their heads and hides -as trophies. With women it was different--perhaps the captors' weapons, -whatever they were, worked more efficiently on females. A difference in -body chemistry or psychology, perhaps. - -More than once, during his long training with Opal, Tennant had sent -questing thoughts toward his captor, asking why they didn't simply set -up the gateway in some town or city and take as many humans as they -wanted. - -Surprisingly there had been a definite fear reaction. As nearly as he -could understand, it had been like asking an African pygmy, armed with -a blowgun, to set up shop in the midst of a herd of wild elephants. It -simply wasn't feasible--and furthermore he derived an impression of the -tenuosity as well as the immovability of the gateway itself. - -They could be hurt, even killed by humans in a three-dimensional world. -How? Tennant did not know. Perhaps as a man can cut finger or even -throat on the edge of a near-two-dimensional piece of paper. It took -valor for them to hunt men in the world of men. In that fact lay a key -to their character--if such utterly alien creatures could be said to -have character. - - * * * * * - -Cass Gordon was smiling at him, saying something about one for the -road. Tennant accepted only because it was luxury to drink liquor that -smelled and tasted as liquor should. He raised his glass to Agatha, -said, "I may turn up again, but it's unlikely, so have yourself a time, -honey." - -"Oh, Rog!" said Agatha and her eyes were fraudulently wet. Tennant felt -pure contempt. She knew that Cass intended to try to kill him--and she -couldn't play it straight. She had to ham it up with false emotion, -even though she had silently pleaded with her lover to do something, -anything. He put down his empty glass. The thought that he had spent -eighteen months yearning for this she-Smithfield like a half-damp puppy -made him almost physically ill. - -"You'll make out," he told her with savage sincerity. In her way, in -accord with her desires, Agatha would. At bottom she was, he realized, -as primitive, as realistic, as the three who waited beyond the gateway. -An ex-waitress, an ex-forewoman, an ex-model of mediocre success--and -Agatha. He tried to visualize his wife as a member of his involuntary -harem and realized that she would adapt as readily as the other women. -But he didn't want her. - -He turned away and said, "Ready, Cass?" - -"Right with you," the ex-halfback replied, hurrying toward the hall. -Tennant considered, took another drink for his own road. The signals -had been given, the game was being readied. He had no wish to upset the -planning. He had some plans also, and theirs gave his enough moral -justification to satisfy his usually troublesome conscience. - -Agatha put her arms around his neck. She was warm and soft and moist -of lip and playing her part with obvious enjoyment of its bathos. She -murmured, "I'm so sorry, Rog, darling--" - -"Cut!" he said almost in a snarl and wrenched free. He brought out a -handkerchief--he had remembered to have one created, praise Allah--and -rubbed lipstick from his face. He tossed the handkerchief to Agatha. - -"You might have this analyzed," he told her lightly. "It could be -interesting. The handkerchief, not the lipstick." - -"I'm glad you're going!" she blazed, although her voice was low. "I'm -_glad_ you're going. I hope you _never_ come back." - -"That," he told her, "makes exactly two of us. Have fun." - -He went out into the hall, where Cass was waiting, wearing what was -intended to be a smile. They went out to the car together--it was a big -convertible--and Cass got behind the wheel. He said, "Where to, old -man?" - -"The Upham Road," said Tennant, feeling nothing at all. - - * * * * * - -Cass got the car under way and Tennant sensed them coming through. They -warned him that his chauffeur was carrying a weapon concealed in an -inside pocket. - -_As if I didn't know!_ Tennant snapped back at them. - -Cass tried to drive him past the spot beyond the bridge where the -gateway lay hidden in its armor of invisibility. He evidently planned -to go miles from the house before doing whatever he had decided to do. - -Tennant thought he knew. It would involve riding the back roads like -this one for fifteen or twenty miles, perhaps farther. He suspected -that the quarry pond in South Upham was his intended destination. There -would be plenty of loose rock handy with which to weigh down his body -before dumping it into the water. - -If it were recovered, Cass and Agatha could alibi one another. In view -of his earlier disappearance, this would be simple. Of course there -was the maid, but Cass had enough money and smooth talk to manage that -angle. They could undoubtedly get away with killing him. - -"Stop," said Tennant, just across the bridge. - -"What for?" Cass countered and Tennant knew it was time to act. He -wrenched the key from the ignition switch, tossed it out of the car. -Cass braked, demanded, "What in hell did you do _that_ for?" - -"I get out here," Tennant said. "You didn't stop." - -"Okay, if that's the way you want it." Cass' heavy right hand, the -little black hairs on its back clearly visible in the dashboard light, -moved toward his inside pocket. - -Tennant teleported to the side of the road, became a half-visible shade -against the darkness of the trees. He felt Opal's excitement surge -through his brain, knew that from then on his timing would have to be -split-second perfect. - -It seemed to him as if all the inchoate thoughts, all the vague -theories, all the half-formed plans of more than a year had -crystalized. For the first time since his capture, he not only knew -what he wanted to do--but saw the faint glimmer of a chance of doing it -successfully. - -He was going to try to lead Cass to the gateway, maneuver him -inside--and then escape. They wouldn't get Tennant; the power of -teleportation they themselves had given him would keep him from being -captured again. It would work. He was sure of it. They'd have their -male specimen and he'd be free ... not to go back to Agatha, because he -wouldn't, but to help the three women to get back, too. - - * * * * * - -Cass was plunging after him now, pistol in hand, shouting. Tennant -could have him killed now, have him flayed and decapitated as other -male victims had been. Opal might even give him the hide as a reward -after it was treated. Some Oriental potentate, Tennant reflected, might -relish having his wife's lover as a rug on his living room floor. -Tennant preferred the less operatic revenge of leaving Cass and Agatha -alive to suffer. - -He teleported farther into the trees, closer to the gateway, plotting -carefully his next moves. Cass was crashing along, cursing in -frustration. - -"Stand still, damn you! You shift around like a ghost!" - -Tennant realized with sudden terror that Cass might give up, unable -to solve his prey's abrupt appearances and disappearances. He needed -encouragement to keep him going. - -Jeeringly, Tennant paused, simultaneously thumbed his nose and stuck -out his tongue at Cass. The scornful childishness of the gesture -enraged Cass more than the worst verbal insult could have. He yelled -his anger and fired at Tennant. There was no way to miss, but Tennant -was five yards farther on before the explosion ended. - -"Calm down," he advised quietly. "Getting mad always spoils your aim." - -That, naturally, made Cass even angrier. He fired viciously twice more -before Tennant reached the gateway, both times without a chance of -hitting his elusive target. - -Opal, Tennant discovered, was almost as frantic as Cass. He was deep -inside the passage, jittering visibly in his excitement, in his -anticipation of the most important bag his species had yet made on -Earth. And there was something else in his thoughts.... - -Anxiety. Fear. The gateway was vulnerable to third-dimensional weapons. -Where the concertina-like passage came into contact with Earth, there -was a belt, perhaps a foot in width, which was spanned by some sort of -force-webbing. Opal was afraid that a bullet might strike the webbing -and destroy the gateway. - -Cass was getting closer. It would be so easy ... keep teleporting, -bewilder him, let him make a grab ... and then skip a hundred yards -away just as the gateway shut. He would be outside, Cass inside. - -And the three women? Leave them with Cass? Leave the gateway open for -more live or mounted specimens? - -Tennant concentrated on the zone of strain at the point of dimensional -contact, was there directly in front of it. Cass, cursing, lunged clear -of the underbrush outside, saw Tennant there. Tennant was crouching -low, not moving, staring mockingly at him. He lifted the automatic and -fired. - - * * * * * - -Tennant teleported by inches instead of yards, and so blood oozed from -a graze on his left ear when he rejoined a shaken Opal in the world -that knew no night. For a long time--how long, of course, he could not -know--they stood and watched the gateway burn to globular ash in a dark -brown fire that radiated searing cold. - -Opal was in trouble. An aura of anger, of grief, of accusation, -surrounded him. Others of them came and for a while Tennant was -forgotten. Then, abruptly, he was back in his own compound, walking -toward the house. - -In place of his country Napoleonic roll-bed, which he had visualized -for manufacture with special care, Dana had substituted an immense -modern sleeping device that looked like a low hassock with a ten-foot -diameter. She was on her knees, her back toward the door, fiddling with -a radio. - -She heard him enter, said without turning, "It won't work. Just a -little while ago it stopped." - -"I think we're cut off now, perhaps for good," he told her. He sat -down on the edge of the absurd bed and began to take off the clothes -they had given him for the hunt. He was too tired to protest against -the massacre of his bedroom decor. He was not even sure he wanted to -protest. For all its anachronism, the big round bed was comfortable. - -She watched him, her hands on her thighs, and there was worry written -on her broad forehead. "You know something, Rog." - -"I don't _know_ anything," he replied. "I only think and have -theories." Unexpectedly he found himself telling her all about it, -about himself, where he had been, what he had done. - -She listened quietly, saying nothing, letting him go on. His head was -in her lap and he talked up to her while she ran gentle fingers through -his hair. When he had finished, she smiled down at him thoughtfully, -affectionately, then said, "You know, you're a funny kind of man, -Roger." - -"Funny?" - -She cuffed him gently. "You know what I mean. So now we're really cut -off in this place--you and me and little Tom and Olga and Eudalia and -the twins. What are we going to do, Roger?" - -He shrugged. He was very tired. "Whatever they'll let us do," he said -through a yawn. "Maybe we can make this a two-way study. They are -almost human, you know. Almost." He pulled her down and kissed her and -felt unexpected contentment decant through his veins. He knew now that -things had worked out the right way, the only way. He added aloud, "I -think we'll find ways to keep ourselves amused." - -"You really enjoy playing the heel, don't you, Rog?" Her lips moved -against his as she spoke. "You had a chance to get out of here. You -could have changed places with Cass. Maybe you could have destroyed the -gateway and stayed on the other side and still saved other victims. But -no, you had to come back to--us. I think I'm going to be in love with -you for that." - -He sat up on one elbow and looked down at her half angrily. "Are you -trying to make a goddam hero out of me?" he asked. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Judas Ram, by Sam Merwin - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDAS RAM *** - -***** This file should be named 51053.txt or 51053.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/0/5/51053/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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