Viewpoint by Randall Garrett (red queen ebook TXT) 📖

him where he was.

Carefully, he grasped the handle of the door, twisted it, and pulled. And, careful as he had been, the door swung inward with surprising rapidity. It was a great deal thinner and lighter than he had supposed.

He looked down at it, wondering if there were any way the door could be locked. There was a tiny vertical slit set in a small metal panel in the door, but it was much too tiny to be a keyhole. Still—

It didn't matter. If necessary, he could smash the glass to get through the door. He stepped out into what was obviously a hallway beyond the door.

The hallway stretched away to either side, lined with doors similar to the one he had just come through. How did a man get out of this place, anyway? The door behind him was pressing against his hand with a patient insistence, as though it wanted to close itself. He almost let it close, but, at the last second, he changed his mind.

Better the devil we know than the devil we don't, he thought to himself.

He went back into the office and looked around for something to prop the door open. He found a small, beautifully formed porcelain dish on one of the desks, picked it up, and went back to the door. The dish held the door open an inch or so. That was good enough. If someone locked the door, he could still smash in the glass if he wanted to, but the absence of the dish when he returned would tell him that he was not alone in this mysterious place.

He started down the hallway to his right, checking the doors as he went. They were all locked. He knew that he could break into any of them, but he had a feeling that he would find no exit through any of them. They all looked as though they concealed more of the big rooms.

None of them had any lights behind them. Only the one door that he had come through showed the telltale glow from the other side. Why?

He had the terrible feeling that he had been drawn across time to this place for a purpose, and yet he could think of no rational reason for believing so.

He stopped as another memory came back. He remembered being in the stone-walled dungeon, with its smelly straw beds, lit only by the faint shaft of sunlight that came from the barred window high overhead.

Contarini, the short, wiry little Italian who was in the next cell, looked at him through the narrow opening. "I still think it can be done, my friend. It is the mind and the mind alone that sees the flow of time. The body experiences, but does not see. Only the soul is capable of knowing eternity."

Broom outranked the little Italian, but prison can make brothers of all men. "You think it's possible then, to get out of a place like this, simply by thinking about it?"

Contarini nodded. "Why not? Did not the saints do so? And what was that? Contemplation of the Eternal, my comrade; contemplation of the Eternal."

Broom held back a grin. "Then why, my Venetian friend, have you not left this place long since?"

"I try," Contarini had said simply, "but I cannot do it. You wish to know why? It is because I am afraid."

"Afraid?" Broom raised an eyebrow. He had seen Contarini on the battlefield, dealing death in hand-to-hand combat, and the Italian hadn't impressed him as a coward.

"Yes," said the Venetian. "Afraid. Oh, I am not afraid of men. I fight. Some day, I may die—will die. This does not frighten me, death. I am not afraid of what men may do to me." He stopped and frowned. "But, of this, I have a great fear. Only a saint can handle such things, and I am no saint."

"I hope, my dear Contarini," Broom said dryly, "that you are not under the impression that I am a saint."

"No, perhaps not," Contarini said. "Perhaps not. But you are braver than I. I am not afraid of any man living. But you are afraid of neither the living nor the dead, nor of man nor devil—which is a great deal more than I can say for myself. Besides, there is the blood of kings in your veins. And has not a king protection that even a man of noble blood such as myself does not have? I think so.

"Oh, I have no doubt that you could do it, if you but would. And then, perhaps, when you are free, you would free me—for teaching you all I know to accomplish this. My fear holds me chained here, but you have no chains of fear."

Broom had thought that over for a moment, then grinned. "All right, my friend; I'll try it. What's your first lesson?"

The memory faded from Broom's mind. Had he really moved through some segment of Eternity to reach this ... this place? Had he—

He felt a chill run through him. What was he doing here? How could he have taken it all so calmly. Afraid of man or devil, no—but this was neither. He had to get back. The utter alienness of this bright, shining, lifeless wonderland was too much for him.

Instinctively, he turned and ran back toward the room he had left. If he got back to the place where he had appeared in this world, perhaps—somehow—some force would return him to where he belonged.

The door was as he had left it, the porcelain dish still in place. He scooped up the dish in one big hand and ran on into the room, letting the door shut itself behind him. He ran on, through the large room with its many tables, into the brightly lighted room beyond.

He stopped. What could he do now? He tried to remember the things that the Italian had told him to do, and he could not for the life of him remember them. His memory still had gaps in it—gaps he did not know were there because he had not yet probed for them. He closed his eyes in concentration, trying to bring back a memory that would not come.

He did not hear the intruder until the man's voice echoed in the room.

Broom's eyes opened, and instantly every muscle and nerve in his hard-trained body tensed for action. There was a man standing in the doorway of the office.

He was not a particularly impressive man, in spite of the queer cut of his clothes. He was not as tall as Broom, and he looked soft and overfed. His paunch protruded roundly from the open front of the short coat, and there was a fleshiness about his face that betrayed too much good living.

And he looked even more frightened than Broom had been a few minutes before.

He was saying something in a language that Broom did not understand, and the tenseness in his voice betrayed his fear. Broom relaxed. He had nothing to fear from this little man.

"I won't hurt you," Broom said. "I had no intention of intruding on your property, but all I ask is help."

The little man was blinking and backing away, as though he were going to turn and bolt at any moment.

Broom laughed. "You have nothing to fear from me, little man. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Richard Broom, known as—" He stopped, and his eyes widened. Total memory flooded over him as he realized fully who he was and where he belonged.

And the fear hit him again in a raging flood, sweeping over his mind and blotting it out. Again, the darkness came.

This time, the blackness faded quickly. There was a face, a worried face, looking at him through an aperture in the stone wall. The surroundings were so familiar, that the bits of memory which had been scattered again during the passage through centuries of time came back more quickly and settled back into their accustomed pattern more easily.

The face was that of the Italian, Contarini. He was looking both worried and disappointed.

"You were not gone long, my lord king," he said. "But you were gone. Of that there can be no doubt. Why did you return?"

Richard Broom sat up on his palette of straw. The scene in the strange building already seemed dreamlike, but the fear was still there. "I couldn't remember," he said softly. "I couldn't remember who I was nor why I had gone to that ... that place. And when I remembered, I came back."

Contarini nodded sadly. "It is as I have heard. The memory ties one too strongly to the past—to one's own time. One must return as soon as the mind had adjusted. I am sorry, my friend; I had hoped we could escape. But now it appears that we must wait until our ransoms are paid. And I much fear that mine will never be paid."

"Nor mine," said the big man dully. "My faithful Blondin found me, but he may not have returned to London. And even if he has, my brother John may be reluctant to raise the money."

"What? Would England hesitate to ransom the brave king who has fought so gallantly in the Holy Crusades? Never! You will be free, my friend."

But Richard Plantagenet just stared at the little dish that he still held in his hand, the fear still in his heart. Men would still call him "Lion-hearted," but he knew that he would never again deserve the title.

And, nearly eight centuries away in time and thousands of miles away in space, a Mr. Edward Jasperson was speaking hurriedly into the telephone that stood by the electric typewriter on his desk.

"That's right, Officer; Suite 8601, Empire State Building. I was working late, and I left the lights on in my office when I went out to get a cup of coffee. When I came back, he was here—a big, bearded man, wearing a thing that looked like a monk's robe made out of gunny sack. What? No, I locked the door when I left. What? Well, the only thing that's missing as far as I can tell is a ceramic ash tray from one of the desks; he was holding that in his hand when I saw him. What? Oh. Where did he go?" Mr. Jasperson paused in his rush of words. "Well, I must have gotten a little dizzy—I was pretty shocked, you know. To be honest, I didn't see where he went. I must have fainted.

"But I think you can pick him up if you hurry. With that getup on, he can't get very far away. All right. Thank you, Officer."

He cradled the phone, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and dabbed at his damp forehead. He was a very frightened little man, but he knew he'd get over it by morning.

THE END

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Viewpoint, by Gordon Randall Garrett