Somewhere I'll Find You by Marlowe Stephen

Author:Marlowe, Stephen [Marlowe, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Pulp
Publisher: Amazing Stories
Published: 1951-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

Scene 6

“Well, here we are,” Torstein said later, opening the door. “See, you were right, we didn’t have anything to worry about.”

Anxiously, Ed stuck his head outside. Bright sunshine greeted him, and he saw a fertile plain rolling to the horizon in all directions. A nice world—

Abruptly, he pulled his head back inside and slammed the door.

“What’s the matter?” Tor demanded.

“Nothing much, damn it. Except that this isn’t the right world.”

“How can you tell so quick?”

“Well, I poked my head out and things looked real nice. But then something came bouncing up over a low hill, and I knew we got the wrong address.”

“Something? What?”

“A grasshopper.”

“A grasshopper?”

“That’s what I said, a grasshopper. Only it was about as big as the two of us, standing end on end, and we aren’t exactly shrimps, Tor.”

Torstein scowled. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute, don’t get excited. Couldn’t that mean that we merely remained small? You must get smaller, you know, along with the ship, to release interatomic energies.”

“Sure, but you also have to get larger again. That’s the way it works. The last stage is automatic, Tor. Welcome told me that, so we’ll have to let it go.”

“Then what do you think happened?”

“I don’t know, but I can guess. If something as peculiar—and probably dangerous—as grasshoppers twice the size of men…”

“I see! If something like that existed on Freya’s Earth, the hag would have warned us.”

“Sure. And you know what that means? Whoever tampered with the controls fixed it so the ship wouldn’t go where we directed. This world outside, Tor, is a place where insects and not men became the dominant creatures, Let’s take a look.”

They opened the door for only a few moments, but it was enough. Another giant grasshopper came bounding into view, chasing a tiny furry creature for dinner. Great wings droned overhead, and a flight of bees as big as men, striped brilliant yellow and black, flashed down at them.

Torstein slammed the door and turned to the controls as the bees drummed against their ship, shaking it. “What now? There are four levers, twelve notches on each. Forty-eight possible worlds. Do we have to stop at all?”

Ed shrugged hopelessly. “I guess so. I—it’s worse than that, Tor! Remember, Welcome said that the notches stood for known worlds, but there might be an infinity of unknown ones. If the guy did a good job on this crate, we may have to look at a thousand worlds. Maybe more. And it won’t be this easy each time to tell we’re at the wrong place…”

Torstein paced back and forth. He smiled, but weakly. “Well, we’re young. Want to start now?”

“I don’t see there’s anything else we can do. Lord, what a mess. And Freya—”

“Take a number,” Torstein said. “Any number. Third lever, seventh notch—coming up!”

A cloudy day. The outskirts of a small city. An orchard, with lush apples ripening on the trees, They appeased their hunger, found a brook and did the same for their thirst, and then a man approached them.

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