Vassals of the Lode-Star

Thor stared out the window. There should be the elms of the Midwestern campus out there, but all he could see were pale purple mists. Thor went toward the window and peered out. Midwestern University, where Thor had come from lumber camp and battlefield, ought to be showing its greystone buildings soon. But the more Thor stared into the lavender mists, the colder became his heart.

Because, as the clouds shifted to reveal darker spaces, Thor could see stars glittering in the blackness. He thought, Something has lifted the house right off the campus. Something has us in its grip. We're being taken away from the Earth--taken out in space. For he knew from the star formations that he could see momentarily, that something was moving him and the house swiftly across the void.

The house bumped, pitching at a gentle angle. The floor was like the deck of a ship caught in the trough of a wave. Thor rolled with it, legs straddled.

The front door cracked open as the house settled onto something solid. The purple mists began to flee before the pale yellow light streaming through the door and window.

Thor walked with the girl to the doorway and stood on the cracked sill, looking out. I'm delirious, he thought. I've read some fantastic tale and gotten drunk, and this is the result. What I'm looking at is the chaos of a surrealist nightmare.

Sprawling grey rock humped itself into impossible contortions under the warmth of a great yellow sun. Where the rock disappeared, red grass swayed its blades. Low mists hung in the distance.

The girl whimpered. She whispered in a language that made Thor think of jewels in a tumbling spring, clicking and clacking. He grinned down at her.

"Don't ask me, sweet stuff," he said. "Offhand I'd say that Dali had us in one of his landscapes. And you wouldn't know about him. But as far as any explanation of where we are or what happened, I'm up a tree. Still, I rather imagine that something went wrong with the space coordinates."

He went on dreamily, "We don't know an awful lot about space. Maybe it moves along with the rest of the expanding universe, and maybe it doesn't. But if a certain segment of space was addicted to going off on a tangent--away from its usual sphere--it could conceivably snatch up whatever was in its path, and sort of kidnap it. Get it, sweet stuff?"

Like a woman, she ignored everything but the one thing. Seriously she repeated, "Sweet stoff. Sweet stoff."

Thor laughed, "That's you." He touched her with his finger. She shook her head vigorously, making the yellow hair fly out fanwise.

"Karola, Karola," she said insistently.

"Karola. Okay. I'm Thor."

The violet eyes were sliding over him, taking in his big frame and long legs. Thor flushed a little, reading the frank admiration in her eyes. Felling logs and playing an all-Conference grade of tackle on the football team had built up an already good physique. But the years of logging and football and fighting had left little time for women. And Karola was a woman among women.

She laughed at him, and said something.

"We'd better take a look around," he said, carefully looking over her golden head.

He was staring at grey rock as he spoke. Above it a shape took form out of empty air. It was a man, standing and staring at them. It was as though he had slid sideways out of another dimension. The man watched them with unblinking eyes. He fumbled at a red jewel that hung on a chain at his chest.

An instant later, the man was gone.

"A swell place this is, where a man appears and disappears right in front of you," he said disgustedly. "If they can come and go when and where they please, what chance have we?"

Riotous ideas of invisible men swarming about him and overcoming him capered through his brain. Unconsciously he tensed, preparing for trouble. But nothing happened. Slowly he relaxed.

"Guess they aren't coming at us, after all. He was just a look-out."

The girl was talking that queerly jewel-talk of hers.

He cut in with, "Sweet stuff, you and I are going to understand each other if we're staying together. And since I like the idea of having you around--and since I've a hunch we'll never get back to where we came from, we might as well begin right now."

Thor pointed to things and sang out his words for them. The girl listened, head to one side, nodding. She repeated after him, syllable after syllable. They wandered across the grey rock, the man bulking big alongside the woman. Thor knew it would take time, but the girl was eager. Her violet eyes flickered swiftly after his pointing finger and her mouth readily formed the words.

Suddenly Karola gasped and caught his arm with a hand that dug long nails into his flesh. "Slag!" she cried, and flung up a white arm.

Thor saw the house tilted across lava-like rocks. It looked distorted without the elms around it, and the background of grey stone university buildings. The mansard roof was buckled in spots as though under the sledge of a mad giant. Windows gapped without panes of glass, and rungs in split porch railings stuck up like broken teeth. But the dwarf-man leaping from the open doorway was what brought him to his feet.

The girl jabbered in alarm, but Thor grinned and waited. Not for nothing had he been born and raised in a lumber camp. He had fought men with fists and axe-handles. The club was just another axe-handle to him, a little heavier and metal-shod, but as easily eluded.

The dwarf-man halted and looked at them. He called out to the girl. Thor saw that his words calmed her, even as she showed surprise.

The dwarf-man threw the club away and knelt.

Karola frowned and tossed her long yellow hair back over her head. Thor saw she was struggling for words, that she wanted to tell him good news. He fancied that the dwarf-man was trying to make friends.