silence.
A long broad hallway stretched before him. At the far end a ramp angledupward to a higher level. Sutter walked forward slowly, aware in a vagueway that he had entered another plane that was at once a microcosm and amacrocosm. On the second level the way ahead divided. After a moment'shesitation he chose the left-hand passage, passing through akeyhole-shaped archway into a broad amphitheater, empty of furnishings,with a kind of terrace or gallery at the far end. Emerging upon thatgallery, Sutter saw that he had reached the outer limit of the shell.The edges of the wall before him were cut off, jagged and rough, wherehis saw had done its work.
He was looking out upon the normal world that was his living room.
He stiffened as the door to the room opened and Lucien Travail entered.He sat down before the center table and carefully, systematically begangoing through the contents of the table drawer. Startled, Sutterwatched from his strange vantage point. Travail had not noticed that thetelevision set was turned on, and the high-backed davenport apparentlyhid the cone of blue light from his view.
He took a sheet of paper from the drawer, began reading it. With a startSutter recognized his letter from the Federal Arts Museum.
And as a wave of wrath swept over him, Sutter saw that the beach sceneon the television set was slowly fading away. Fear and a realization ofhis strange position struck him. He turned and ran madly back across theamphitheater, down the ramp and along the long hallway to the pointwhere he had entered the shell. Even as he approached it the cone ofblue light dimmed, wavered and was replaced by a wall of partialblackness.
Sutter sent his hands clawing desperately at that wall as it flickeredtwice and momentarily became translucent again. He forced his bodybetween folds of palpable darkness, slid into the vanishing blue cone.Instantly he found himself in his normal world, standing in the centerof the sitting room. Travail looked up, startled.
"Hullo. Where did you come from?" he said finally.
Sutter said, "What are you doing in my drawer?"
"I was looking for my tobacco pouch," Travail replied easily. "I'm sureI left it here on the table last night. I thought the maid might haveput it in the drawer."
In his bedroom Sutter wrapped each of the alien shells in a sheet ofnewspaper and restored them to the basket. He placed the basket on thetop shelf of the closet, concealing it with a couple of old hats.
He didn't sleep well that night. His mind reviewed over and over hisstrange experience. Toward morning he fell into a deep sleep and dreameda wild dream of walking down a broad highway, flanked on one side by anendless line of television sets and on the other by man-high hills ofalien shells.
He had his breakfast at the little coffee shop around the corner. Buthalfway back to his apartment he suddenly thought of Travail alone inthe house with his shells. He broke into a run and he was panting forbreath when he reached his door.
The basket of shells was still on the shelf, but the newspaper wrappingswere loosened, and the bisected shell was entirely free of covering. Andhe had not left them that way last evening.
Had atomic transmigration attempted to draw the shells back into theTime sphere to which they really belonged? Sutter was a logical man, andeven as this thought came his mind rejected it. It must be Travail. Hehad taken a sample shell from the basket and even now perhaps wasdickering with the officials of the Federal Arts Museum on a price.
Sutter picked up the bisected shell and went into the sitting room. Hecarefully placed the shell upon the table so that the light from thetelevision set would fall directly upon it. Then he sat down to wait.
As he waited he mentally viewed the material prospects of his discovery.
If the Federal Arts Museum had offered five thousand credits for his oldcollection, they would surely double their price on these rarities. Hesaw himself the recipient of a fat check, his name and picture in thepapers, television interviews, lecture assignments, world fame ...
And to think that Travail had the brazen nerve to believe he could cashin on his good fortune!
"Damned bearded coot!" Sutter mumbled to himself. "He must take me foran utter fool!"
Footsteps sounded and his bearded roommate entered the room. Was itfancy or did Sutter see in those grey eyes a gleam of mingled avariceand satisfaction?
"Have a cigar?" said Travail casually.
Sutter shook his head. "You know I don't smoke." He crossed the room,adjusted the controls of the television set and watched the familiarbeach scene come into sharper focus. As the sound of the washing wavesboomed from the speaker, the cone of bluish light took form before thebisected shell. Sutter moved the shell slightly so that it lay atdirectly right angles to the panel of the TV set. Travail, drawing onhis cigar, watched him curiously.
"What are you doing?" he asked at length.
"Little experiment. Stand over here and I'll show you. Here, in front ofthis cone of light."
Travail took the place indicated. His face was emotionless as he lookedbeyond the light into the bisected shell.
"Now walk forward," commanded Sutter.
"I'll do nothing of the sort," said Travail, starting to back away."What are you up to anyway?"
Sutter had no plan in mind beyond an overwhelming desire to put a badfright into his roommate in payment for what he considered a monstrousact of duplicity. It would serve Travail right if, once he entered thesecondary plane of the shell, he would be forced to stay there a while.A good scare would cause him to leave, maybe.
Sutter moved up behind the bearded man and gave him a violent shoveforward. "In you go!" he cried hysterically.
Travail pitched head foremost. But, spinning, he clutched at Sutter'sarm, gripping it with the desperation of a drowning man. Half inside,half outside the cone of blue light he seemed propelled into the depthsof the bisected shell by an irresistible force. In vain did Sutter fightto release the hold upon his arm. His squirming legs fastened themselvesabout the legs of a heavy Windsor chair, kicked frantically.
The chair spun from between his feet and lurched heavily across the roomwhere it fell hard upon the television set, shattering the glowingscreen into a thousand fragments. Simultaneously, Sutter slid forwardinto the bisected shell as the cone of light vanished after him....
Mrs. Conworth, the landlady, reported the disappearance of her tworoomers on August first, a week after she last saw them. First, however,to the disgust of the police, she cleaned their apartment, giving to thetrash man all valueless and inconsequential articles, including a box ofold sea shells which she found in the closet. It was a curious fact thatneither Sutter nor Travail possessed relatives or friends to makeinquiry as to their whereabouts and thus without incentive the officialsearch died into nothing.
Mrs. Conworth rather regretted the loss of her bachelor roomers and, asshe said to her neighbor across the street, she kept one memento ofthem--a thing that looked like a shell but wasn't a shell. She thoughtit must be one of them optical illusion things.
"When you look at it in a certain way," said Mrs. Conworth, "it seems asif there are two tiny men inside it, fighting to get out."
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Fantastic Universe_ May 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends