World Beyond the Sky by Robert Moore Williams

Author:Robert Moore Williams [Williams, Robert Moore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

HE was pointing to the two suns in the sky. Strong had already seen them. His mind had refused to accept the conclusion. There was still the possibility that this was on optical illusion, an hallucination. He had thought the circle of light in the devil-worshipers’ temple to be a piece of stage property, and he was not yet convinced that this conclusion was not correct.

“How can I be certain I’m not dreaming all this?” he demanded.

Stregel spread his hands. “You cannot be certain of that, ever. No one can. All of your life a dream may have been. There is no way to know, for sure. That is the way nature guards her final secrets, by not allowing us to distinguish between real-stuff and dream-stuff.”

Momentarily the scientist sounded sad.

“It is thinking I have been,” he said. “No other conclusion can I reach, except that this is another universe.” He gestured out the window. “New York, it is out there somewhere. You ask where?” He shrugged. “I cannot answer.

“A gulf is between us. If I knew how that gulf was constructed, the wisest man who ever lived I would be, yet. I do not know, but this much I can guess from what I have seen. Someone, in this universe, a method discovered of crossing that gulf. How far is it across that gulf? I do not know. It may be an inch, a million miles it may be.

“In that gulf, space is not the same as it is in our universe or as it is in this world. Distorted, it is, warped. Words will not tell about it; mathematics, even, will not describe it. It was crossed and a window opened into our universe.

“That window is—must have been—located inside a warehouse that had been abandoned. A watchman, perhaps, found it. To him it looked as if a strange circle of light hanging in the air was. A superstitious man, he honestly thought the devil had appeared to him.”

All this was conjecture, Strong knew. Yet granting the hypothesis that they were in another universe, the conjecture did not seem farfetched. Humans being what they were, the devil-worshipers would immediately conclude that the creature they saw in the circle of light was either a god or a devil.

Superstition would account for such a reaction. The men who discovered the apparition would be inclined to worship it.

“That ladder ought to have been a clue,” Don Strong said, remembering the ladder the devil-worshippers had thrust up to the circle of light.

“Exactly,” Stregel agreed. “Foolishness I thought was taking place, until I saw the ladder. Then I knew somebody meant business.”

A few questions had been broached. The two outcasts knew, or thought they knew, where they were. In another universe. But each question that was answered opened other questions. Where was Rikki? What had happened to Trait and to the girl reporter? What had-happened to Don’s father?

A sound turned them around. In the doorway stood one of the men of this strange world. His ears were flipped forward in a gesture unmistakably questioning.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.