Time Dweller by Michael Moorcock

Author:Michael Moorcock [Moorcock, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

SIX

THE ROAD was white, the sky was blue, the car was red and the countryside was green. Yet there was less clarity about the scenery than Seward remembered; Perhaps it was because he no longer had the relaxing company of Farlowe, because his mind was working furiously and his emotions at full blast.

Whoever had designed the set-up on this world had done it well, but had missed certain details. Seward realized that one of the ‘ alien’ aspects of the world was that everything was just a little too new. Even Farlowe’s car looked as if it had just been driven off the production line.

By the early afternoon he was beginning to feel tired and some of his original impetus had flagged. He decided to move in to the side of the road and rest for a short time, stretch his legs. He stopped the car and got out.

He walked over to the other side of the road. It was on a hillside and he could look down over a wide, shallow valley. A river gleamed in the distance, there were cottages and livestock in the fields. He couldn’t see the horizon. Far away he saw a great bank of reddish-looking clouds that seemed to swirl and seethe like a restless ocean. For all the signs of habitation, the countryside had taken on a desolate quality as if it had been abandoned. He could not believe that there were people living in the cottages and tending the livestock. The whole thing looked like the set for a film. Or a play - a complicated play devised by the Man Without A Navel and his friends-a play in which the fate of a world-possibly two worlds-was at stake.

How soon would the play resolve itself? he wondered, as he turned back towards the car.

A woman was standing by the car. She must have come down the hill while he was looking at the valley. She had long, jet black hair and big, dark eyes. Her skin was tanned dark gold. She had full, extraordinarily sensuous lips. She wore a well-tailored red suit, a black blouse, black shoes and black handbag. She looked rather sheepish. She raised her head to look at him and as she did so a lock of her black hair fell over her eyes. She brushed it back.

‘ Hello,’ she said.’ Am I lucky!’

‘Are you?’

‘I hope so. I didn’t expect to find a car on the road. You haven’t broken down have you?’ She asked this last question anxiously.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I stopped for a rest. How did you get here?’

She pointed up the hill. ‘ There’s a little track up there - a cattle-track, I suppose. My car skidded and went into a tree. It’s a wreck.’

‘ I’ll have a look at it for you.’

She shook her head. ‘ There’s no point - it’s a write-off. Can you give me a lift?’

‘ Where are you going?’ he said unwillingly.

‘ Well, it’s about sixty miles that way,’ she pointed in the direction he was going.

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