She said in a low voice, “Few people do believe it. That is one of our maxims, when we travel. We are safe from much suspicion because people before The Travel began will not believe.”
The emptiness in Oliver’s stomach suddenly doubled in volume. For an instant the bottom dropped out of time itself and the universe was unsteady about him. He felt sick. He felt naked and helpless. There was a buzzing in his ears and the room dimmed before him.
He had not really believed—not until this instant. He had expected some rational explanation from her that would tidy all his wild half thoughts and suspicions into something a man could accept as believable. Not this.
Kleph dabbed at her eyes with the pale-blue handkerchief and smiled tremulously.
“I know,” she said. “It must be a terrible thing to accept. To have all your concepts turned upside down— We know it from childhood, of course, but for you…here, Oliver. The euphorias will make it easier.”
He took the cup, the faint stain of her lip rouge still on the crescent opening. He drank, feeling the dizzy sweetness spiral through his head, and his brain turned a little in his skull as the volatile fragrance took effect. With that turning, focus shifted and all his values with it.
He began to feel better. The flesh settled on his bones again, and the warm clothing of temporal assurance settled upon his flesh, and he was no longer naked and in the vortex of unstable time.
“The story is very simple, really,” Kleph said. “We—travel. Our own time is not terribly far ahead of yours. No. I must not say how far. But we still remember your songs and poets and some of your great actors. We are a people of much leisure, and we cultivate the art of enjoying ourselves.
“This is a tour we are making—a tour of a year’s seasons. Vintage seasons. That autumn in Canterbury was the most magnificent autumn our researchers could discover anywhere. We rode in a pilgrimage to the shrine—it was a wonderful experience, though the clothing was a little hard to manage.
“Now this month of May is almost over—the loveliest May in recorded times. A perfect May in a wonderful period. You have no way of knowing what a good, gay period you live in, Oliver. The very feeling in the air of the cities—that wonderful national confidence and happiness—everything going as smoothly as a dream. There were other Mays with fine weather, but each of them had a war or a famine, or something else wrong.” She hesitated, grimaced and went on rapidly. “In a few days we are to meet at a coronation in Rome,” she said, “I think the year will be 800—Christmastime. We—”
“But why,” Oliver interrupted, “did you insist on this house? Why do the others want to get it away from you?”
Kleph stared at him. He saw the tears rising again in small bright crescents that gathered above her lower lids. He saw the look of obstinacy that came upon her soft, tanned face. She shook her head.
“You must not ask me that.” She held out the steaming cup. “Here, drink and forget what I have said. I can tell you no more. No more at all.”
When he woke, for a little while he had no idea where he was. He did not remember leaving Kleph or coming to his own room. He didn’t care, just then. For he woke to a sense of overwhelming terror.
The dark was full of it His brain rocked on waves of fear and pain. He lay motionless, too frightened to stir, some atavistic memory warning him to lie quiet until he knew from which direction the danger threatened. Reasonless panic broke over him in a tidal flow; his head ached with its violence and the dark throbbed to the same rhythms.
A knock sounded at the door. Omerie’s deep voice said, “Wilson! Wilson, are you awake?”
Oliver tried twice before he had breath to answer. “Y-yes—what is it?”
The knob rattled. Omerie’s dim figure groped for the light switch and the room sprang into visibility. Omerie’s face was drawn with strain, and he held one hand to his head as if it ached in rhythm with Oliver’s.
It was in that moment, before Omerie spoke again, that Oliver remembered Hollia’s warning. “Move out, young man—move out before tonight.” Wildly he wondered what threatened them all in this dark house that throbbed with the rhythms of pure terror.
Omerie in an angry voice answered the unspoken question.
“Someone has planted a subsonic in the house, Wilson. Kleph thinks you may know where it is.”
“S-subsonic?”
“Call it a gadget,” Ornerie interpreted impatiently. “Probably a small metal box that—”
Oliver said, “Oh,” in a tone that must have told Ornerie everything.
“Where is it?” he demanded. “Quick. Let’s get this over.”
“I don’t know.” With an effort Oliver controlled the chattering of his teeth. “Y-you mean all this—all this is just from the little box?”
“Of course. Now tell me how to find it before we all go crazy.”
Oliver got shakily out of bed, groping for his robe with nerveless hands. “I s-suppose she hid it somewhere downstairs,” he said. “S-she wasn’t gone long.”
Omerie got the story out of him in a few brief questions. He clicked his teeth in exasperation when Oliver had finished it
“That stupid Hollia —”
“Omerie!” Kleph’s plaintive voice wailed from the hall. “Please hurry, Omerie! This is too much to stand! Oh, Omerie, please!”
Oliver stood up abruptly. Then a redoubled wave of the inexplicable pain seemed to explode in his skull at the motion, and he clutched the bedpost and reeled.
“Go find the thing yourself,” he heard himself saying dizzily. “I can’t even walk—”
Omerie’s own temper was drawn wire-tight by the pressure in the room. He seized Oliver’s shoulder and shook him, saying in a tight voice, “You let it in—now help us get it out, or—”
“It’s a gadget out of your world, not mine!” Oliver said furiously.
And then it seemed to him there was a sudden coldness and silence in the room. Even the pain and the senseless terror paused for a moment. Omerie’s pale, cold eyes fixed upon Oliver a stare so chill he could almost feel the ice in it.
“What do you know about our—world?” Omerie demanded.
Oliver did not speak a word. He did not need to; his face must have betrayed what he knew. He was beyond concealment in the stress of this night-time terror he still could not understand.
Omerie bared his white teeth and said three perfectly unintelligible words. Then he stepped to the door and snapped, “Kleph!”
Oliver could see the two women huddled together in the hall, shaking violently with involuntary waves of that strange, synthetic terror. Klia, in a luminous green gown, was rigid with control, but Kleph made no effort whatever at repression. Her downy robe had turned soft gold tonight; she shivered in it and the tears ran down her face unchecked.
