Beyond the Barrier Read online

  “What?” said Wells, slow to react. He half rose from his chair. “Naismith, wait—”

  Naismith did not reply. He slid the door open, whipped through, slammed it again behind him and was running down the walk. Blood raced warm in his arteries he felt no fear, only an intense and almost pleasurable anger.

  In the instant before Orvile finished speaking, the whole problem had become transparently simple. The police had no evidence against him in Ramsdell’s death, and could not hold him; but they could, and would, delay him. And he was tiger-ishly convinced that his only safety now lay in striking back, as hard and as fast as he could.

  At the foot of the hill, he caught a cruising municipal cab, and ordered the driver: “Hollywood. I’ll give you the address on the way.”

  As the cab swung around and headed east on the Freeway, Naismith put a quarter into the phone slot and punched

  “Directory, Hollywood.” The yellow transparency lighted up.

  Naismith punched “C-H-U-R-A-N.”

  The illuminated image jumped and blurred repeatedly; then it steadied on a page of fine print, slowly traveling past the scanner. Naismith punched the “Hold” button. There it was:

  “M. Churan, Imprtr,” and an address on Sunset Boulevard.

  Naismith glanced at his wristwatch: it was just four o’clock, and most California businessmen did not close their doors till four-thirty. There was still time.

  “This is it, mister,” said the driver, reaching over to turn off the meter. Naismith paid him and got out. The building was a yellow-stone monstrosity dating from the previous century.

  In the lobby, Churan’s name was on the ancient white-letter directory. Naismith took the elevator to the fifth floor. The office, behind a corrugated glass door with Churan’s name on it, was locked and silent.

  Naismith rattled the door in a burst of anger. Raging, he banged the door back and forth in its quarter-inch of play, until the corridor rang with the sound.

  The office next door opened and a pink young man stepped out, shirt-sleeved, with his necktie undone. “Here,” he said.

  “Here, what’s the gas with you, son? Don’t go like that.”

  Naismith stared at him. The young man looked surprised, flinched, and stepped back into the shelter of his doorway.

  “Nothing personal, son,” he added.

  “Do you know Churan?” Naismith demanded.

  “Sure, I know him, son—to say what ho. But he’s gone, son—gone—zipped out half an hour ago. I saw him leave.”

  Naismith stared at the locked door. He had been quick, but not quick enough. With an impatient surge, he put the full force of his arm and wrist against the doorknob: with a sharp, ringing snap, the latch broke and the door swung in.

  “Hey,” said the pink young man, his jaw open. “Hey, now—”

  Naismith strode into the reception room. There was nobody behind the desk, nobody in the inner office. Filing cabinets were standing open and empty; there was nothing in the desk drawers, nothing pinned to the wall. On one corner of the worn carpet, near the desk, there was a large, fresh ink-stain. There were some jagged pieces of glazed porcelain in the wastebasket, and a bedraggled bunch of yellow flowers.

  Baffled, Naismith paused and sniffed the ah*. The office had an unmistakable atmosphere of vacancy; but to his sharpened senses there was a faint, jangling vibration in the room—yes, and a faint but distinct scent: something cold, musky and unpleasant.

  When he left, the pink young man was still waiting in the corridor. Naismith said gently, “What do you know about Churan?”

  “Well, son, I never spread the air with him. Just what ho in the morning, way I told you. But he’s a pro.”

  “A what?”

  “A professional, son. You know, show biz.” The pink young man pointed to his own open door, on which was lettered,

  “REGAL THEATRICAL ENTERPRISES.”

  Naismith scowled. “Churan is an actor?”

  “Got to be, son. He never got any parts through me, but I can tell. This importing piece must be a sideline. You looking for him real bad?”

  “How can you tell he’s an actor?”

  “The makeup, son. Every time I see him, he’s made up for the cameras. You might not notice, stereo makeup looks so natural, but I can tell. Every time I see him, he’s got it on. Who should I tell him was asking?”

  “Never mind,” said Naismith, suddenly depressed. He turned without another word and went away.

  In his own doorway, in the act of withdrawing the key from the lock, he paused and stood still, listening. A prickle of uneasiness ran over his body. There was a smell in the air, a sickly, charred, greasy smell….

  He went into the living room, through it to the bedroom. At first he saw nothing. Then, glancing at the floor behind the bed, he saw a woman’s foot and a thick ankle. The smell was overpoweringly strong.

  Sickened, he went around the end of the bed. On the floor lay a body he at first could not recognize, although he knew who it must be. Mrs. Becker, who cleaned his apartment on Thursdays—she was the only one other than himself who had a key. She was dead. Dead, and horribly burned. The face, chest, arms and hands were one shapeless, blackened ruin.…

  Naismith went numbly to the visiphone and vised the police.

  They were there in less than ten minutes.

  The cell door closed behind him with a sound of finality.

  Naismith sank down on the narrow bunk, with his head in his hands. The police had interrogated him for three hours.

  They had been very thorough; their questions had ranged from his private life, to his previous history and service record, his amnesia—how they had hammered at that!—to his work at the university, the duplication process, temporal energy, everything. They had even suggested the fantastic idea that he might have alibied himself in both killings by traveling in time.

  “Temporal energy isn’t available on that scale,” he had told them. “You don’t realize what prodigious forces are involved.

  Even with the two thousand megakline tau generator at the University, it takes several hours to charge the ninety liters of water we use in the demonstration.”

  “But the water does move in tune, doesn’t it?” one of the detectives had demanded.

  “Yes, but only a fraction of a microsecond, Lieutenant. The molecules are really only partly out of synch with our t.e.

  matrix. If there were a real displacement, they would simply vanish.”

  The detectives would not give up. Wasn’t it possible to develop the temporal energy process to a point where a man could travel in time?

  “Possible, yes,” he had told them angrily. “For someone thousands of years more advanced in science than we are. For us, now, it’s a complete impossibility!”

  Then they came back to Bursar Ramsdell. What grudge had he had against Ramsdell? “None! I scarcely knew him!”

  Then it was just a coincidence, was it, that Ramsdell had been murdered horribly just after being seen with Naismith? “Yes!”

  Guided by instinct, Naismith did not mention the parcel Ramsdell had given him. He could not explain the strength of the feeling to himself, but he was convinced that if he let the police take possession of the machine, a vital clue would be out of his hands.

  Then the questioners turned to Churan, who had not appeared to identify Naismith, and could not be found. Had he murdered Churan, too, and hidden the body?

  He patiently recounted what had happened at Churan’s office, and named the pink young man as a witness.

  Then what about the death of his housekeeper, Mrs. Becker

  —was that a coincidence, too?

  Naismith grunted, clasping his head in his hands. How could it be coincidental that two people close to him had been killed in the same baffling way, within hours of each other? It was as if he were a sort of Typhoid Mary, an untouched carrier of disaster….

  An idea came to him, and Naismith sat up straight. Erect and still, he was concentra
ting furiously when the outer cell door opened with a clang.

  Startled, Naismith looked up. The jailer in his sweaty blue uniform was entering. He walked to Naismith’s door, fitted a key to the lock, swung the door open. “Okay, you can go,” he grunted.

  Naismith stood up warily. “I’m being released?”

  “Your lawyer got you out on a writ. Come on, this way.”

  “My lawyer? But—” Naismith fell silent and followed the jailer. Wells, when they had allowed Naismith to see him an hour before, had told him he would get a lawyer, but not to expect anything tonight. It’s a first-degree murder charge,” the psychiatrist had said, “and they won’t release you on bail, I know. But I’ll have Howard come down first thing in the morning. Be patient until then.”

  Had he lost track of time—was it morning already? No, the wall clock in the jailer’s office read 9:05 P.M.

  “Here’s your stuff,” the jailer said, tossing an envelope at him across the counter. “Sign for it.”

  Naismith scrawled his name, put the envelope in his pocket, and followed the jailer again. In the waiting room, a slender gray-haired man arose to meet them. He was dressed in a dinner jacket and carried a sleek pigskin briefcase.

  “He’s all yours,” said the jailer, and walked away.

  “Mr. Howard?” Naismith said, advancing with his hand out.

  “Eh? No, no. Jerome is the name; how do you do.” The gray-haired man shook Naismith’s hand perfunctorily, then dropped it. He turned back his cuff to look at a wafer-thin wristwatch. “My heavens, it’s late. I didn’t realize—although I must say the writ didn’t take long. Well, anyhow, you’re out.

  I really shouldn’t have come down at all.” He paused, with a faintly bewildered expression on his pale face. “Shouldn’t have come at all,” he repeated.

  They were descending the stone steps of the jail. Naismith said uneasily, “Did Wells arrange with you about your fee?”

  “Wells?” the other man echoed, looking abstracted. “No, not Wells—I don’t think I know him. You know,” he said, stopping again and facing Naismith, “it’s incredible that I came out tonight at all. I can’t understand it. Why, I was at a dinner party. Good heavens, my daughter is getting married tomor-row—” His face twitched. “Well, good night then,” he said abruptly, and turned away.

  “Wait,” Naismith called after him. “If it wasn’t Wells who asked you to help me, then who?”

  Jerome did not pause. “Your friend Churan,” he said testily over his shoulder. His footsteps dwindled down the echoing walk. Presently he was gone.

  Naismith woke up, aware that he was not alone in the room.

  He had reached home close to midnight, dog-tired, and had fallen almost immediately into an exhausted sleep. Now he was wide awake in the darkness, sitting up, every sense alert to a warning of danger that crawled invisibly in the room.

  There was no sound of movement; but the darkness was electric with the presence of something powerful and menacing.

  Then, slowly, like a mirage in the air, a faint bluish glow came to life in the middle of the room.

  Naismith caught his breath; the blue glow was continuing to grow slowly brighter, until now he could make out the squat shape of something hanging in mid-air.

  It was a shape like a fat piece of tubing, bent downward to form an L. It was a gun, he saw now, as the light continued to grow: a pistol, clearly and unmistakably, although it was like no pistol that he had ever seen before. The thick handle was toward him, the barrel pointing away. Heavy and squat, the gun was a thing of subtle, powerful curves that melted into one another. Intuitively, he knew it was of the same family as the enigmatic machine Ramsdell had given him: completely different in form, they were still alike as brothers.

  It hung there, unsupported, solid and real, and yet somehow spectral-looking in the blue light. It was bigger than any pistol made for a normal man’s hand: Naismith could imagine himself getting out of bed, reaching out and taking the handle in his hand. And he knew that his grip would be barely big enough to hold it; his finger would barely reach far enough to press the trigger.

  The silence was absolute. Naismith had forgotten to breathe.

  The feeling of menace was still in the room, stronger than before, and it emanated partly from the weapon in the air, partly from the shadows beyond. The gun radiated a sense of brutal power: Naismith longed to touch it, and yet he was instinctively afraid of it—afraid of what ravening energies might be released if he touched the trigger. He knew, without any doubt or question, that the gun was no ordinary gun.

  Then the darkness seemed to lift.

  At the far side of the room, where his dresser and wardrobe should have been, Naismith saw a Something that stirred, with an impossibly fluid reptilian motion, and looked at him with tiny red eyes.

  He was out of bed without knowing how he had left it, every muscle taut, the hair standing erect on his head.

  The gun seemed to drift closer.

  The darkness lifted still more, and Naismith saw the hideous, insect-reptilian form of the Thing, heard its armored plates grate together as it moved.

  A thin voice suddenly whispered: “The Zug! The Zug! Kill it? Take the gun—kill it, quick!”

  Naismith moved faster than he had ever done in his remembered life. With one hand he swept up the wooden chair beside his bed, swung it hard and let go. The chair crashed full into the suspended gun.

  There was a sound like silk ripping, and a blinding flare of blue light that undulated across the walls and was gone. Half-blinded, heart hammering in his chest, Naismith found the wall switch and lighted the room.

  The gun was gone. The Thing was gone. The chair lay smashed and blackened in the middle of the floor.

  Chapter Three

  1. The Zug. [Twice underlined.]

  2. Miss Lall. (?)

  3. Things burned—Ramsdell, Mrs. Becker, the chair.

  4. Churan. (?)

  5. Ramsdell’s machine, similar to gun.

  6. Why did Churan accuse me, then get me out of jail?

  7. Why???

  Naismith stared at the list he had written. A pattern was forming in it, but it was maddeningly obscure. He rose from his desk and took a turn around the living room, moving nervously, combing his hair back with an impatient gesture. It was mid-morning: he had finally fallen asleep again toward dawn, and had slept until nearly ten.

  He sat down at the desk again, staring at the list with narrowed eyes. The pattern… He drew a light pencil line between Miss Lall’s name and Churan’s. The two of them, evidently connected, similar in origin… one East Indian, the other, by the sound of the name, probably Iranian.… He felt a touch of uneasiness at this thought, but could not identify it, and went on. He remembered now that Miss Lall always sat alone in class; the other East Indian students invariably sat in close, gossiping groups. Did she avoid them because they would know she was not Indian, in spite of her name?

  Why did Churan wear actor’s makeup?

  Why, why, why…?

  The pencil snapped between his fingers. Naismith sat back, deep in thought. He had done the one right thing last night, he knew intuitively, in hurling the chair at the spectral gun.

  Immediately afterward he had felt an overpowering sense of relief, almost of reprieve. But why? What would have happened if he had touched the gun?

  He thought of the blackened chair, and shuddered. But he knew, somehow, that was not the answer.

  He checked off the points on the list again, one by one.

  After a moment, hesitantly, he drew a doubtful line between

  “Things burned” and “Ramsdell’s machine.”

  Now the thought that had come to him last night in the jail cell began to take shape. Ramsdell had died after handing him the machine from Churan. Mrs. Becker had died after moving the machine from the desk to the closet. A common denomin-ator: both had held it in their hands.

  Naismith got up and went to the closet. The machine gleamed d
ully at him from the shelf. Reluctantly, he reached up and pulled it down. It lay heavy and solid in his hands; it was just heavy enough that, to hold it comfortably, an ordinary person would have to keep it at the level of his chest.

  That was what Ramsdell and Mrs. Becker must have done.

  And they had been burned in the chest, face and arms—that is, in a radius of about a foot and a half from the point where they had held the machine.

  If he was right, he had in his hands a thing of frightful power.

  And yet he had held the machine, not once but several times, just as he was doing now.

  Slowly he put the machine back on the closet shelf. He returned to the desk, leaning over it and staring intently at the list.

  The gun—similar in appearance to the first machine, and evidently wielding the same terrible power. He picked up the pencil, drew another line between the gun and the machine.

  Then he traced it again, making it heavier. The gun had appeared after he brought the machine into the apartment.

  There was one more connection: if he could trace them all, he would have the answer to the mystery.

  He frowned at the last items, the questions of motive, then left them and went back to the head of the list.

  The Zug. The word had a teeth-grating unpleasantness for him now, remembering the shadowy creature he had seen in his bedroom last night. What was it? He had no more knowledge than before: but he knew in his viscera that it was real.

  Miss Lall. There at least was a place to start. It was she who had begun the whole thing, with that abrupt question: “What is a Zug?” Her voice… was it similar to the one that had whispered to him out of emptiness last night? He could not remember: but he felt certain that Miss Lall knew more about what a Zug was than he did.

  She had not asked because she wanted to know.

  Why then? To start him thinking, to create a state of mind in which other things might happen…? Naismith’s fingers tightened on the broken stub of pencil. Yes, he wanted very much to meet Miss Lall again.

  He thought briefly of taking the machine with him to the university laboratories, then dismissed the idea. It was too dangerous; he couldn’t take the chance of injuring any more innocent people. Actually the thing ought to be in a vault by itself somewhere… but barring that, it was as safe here as anywhere. He locked the door carefully behind him.