Public-domain ebook
Mistake inside
by James Blish
Language: en398 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Science-Fiction & Fantasy·Novels·American Literature
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #68829.
The opening · free to read
By JAMES BLISH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Startling Stories, March 1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
This was England, two hundred years before bomb craters had become a fixed feature of the English landscape, and while the coffee house still had precedence over the pub. The fire roared, and the smoke from long clay church-warden pipes made a blue haze through which cheerful conversation struggled.
The door swung back, and the host stood in the opening, fat hands on hips, surveying the scene contentedly. Someone, invisible in the fog, drank a slurred uproarious toast, and a glass slammed into the fireplace, where the brandy-coated fragments made a myriad of small blue flames.
"Split me if that goes not in the reckoning!" the innkeeper bellowed. A ragged chorus of derision answered him. The inn cat shot down the stairs behind him, and its shadow glided briefly over the room as it passed the fire. It was an impossibly large, dark shadow, and for a moment it blacked out several of the booths in the rear of the chamber; the close, motionless air seemed to take on a chill. Then it was gone, and the cat, apparently annoyed by the noise, vanished into the depths of a heavy chair.
The host forgot about it. He was accustomed to its sedentary tastes. It often got sat on in the after-theater hilarity. He rolled good-naturedly across the room as someone pounded on a table for him.
But the cat, this time, had not merely burrowed into the cushions. It was gone. In the chair, in a curiously transparent condition which made him nearly invisible in the uncertain light, sat a dazed, tired figure in a Twentieth-Century Tux....
The radio was playing a melancholy opus called "Is You Is or Is You Ain't, My Baby," as the cab turned the corner. "Here you are, sir," croaked the driver in his three A.M. voice.
The sleepy-eyed passenger's own voice was a little unreliable. "How much?"
The fare was paid and the cabby wearily watched his erstwhile customer go up the snow-covered walk between the hedges. He put the car in gear. Then he gaped and let the clutch up. The engine died with a reproachful gasp.
The late rider had staggered suddenly sidewise toward the bushes--had he been that drunk? Of course, he had only tripped and fallen out of sight; the cabby's fleeting notion that he had melted into the air was an illusion, brought on by the unchristian lateness of the hour. Nevertheless the tracks in the snow did stop rather unaccountably. The cabby swore, started his engine, and drove away, as cautiously as he had ever driven in his life.
Behind him, from the high tree in the yard, a cat released a lonely ululation on the cold, still night.
The stage was set....
There is order in all confusions; but Dr. Hugh Tracy, astronomer, knew nothing of the two events recorded above when his adventure began, so he could make no attempt at integrating them. Indeed, he was in confusion enough without dragging in any stray cats. One minute he had been charging at the door of Jeremy Wright's apartment, an automatic in his hand and blind rage in his heart. As his shoulder had splintered the panel, the world had revolved once around him, like a scene-changing stunt in the movies.
The scene had changed, all right. He was not standing in Jeremy Wright's apartment at all, but in a low-roofed, dirt-floored room built of crudely shaped logs, furnished only with two antique chairs and a rickety table from which two startled men were arising. The two were dressed in leathern jerkins of a type fashionable in the early 1700's.
"I--I beg your pardon," he volunteered lamely. "I must have mixed the apartments up." He did not turn to go immediately, however, for as he thought disgustedly concerning the lengths to which some people will go to secure atmosphere, he noticed the dirty mullioned window across the room. The sight gave him a fresh turn. He might just possibly have mistaken the number of Jeremy Wright's apartment, but certainly he hadn't imagined running up several flights of stairs! Yet beyond the window he could see plainly a cheerful sunlit street.
Sunlit. The small fact that it had been 3:00 A.M. just a minute before did not help his state of mind.
"Might I ask what you're doing breaking out of my room in this fashion?" one of the queerly-costumed men demanded, glaring at Hugh. The other, a younger man, waved his hand indulgently at his friend and sat down again. "Relax, Jonathan," he said. "Can't you see he's a transportee?"
The older man stared more closely at the befuddled Dr. Tracy. "So he is," he said. "I swear, since Yero came to power again this country has been the dumping ground of half the universe. Wherever do they get such queer clothes, do you suppose?"
"Come on in," invited the other. "Tell us your story." He winked knowingly at Jonathan, and Hugh decided he did not like him.
"First," he said, "Would you mind telling me something about that window?"
The two turned to follow his pointed finger. "Why, it's just an ordinary window, in that it shows what's beyond it," said the young man. "Why?"
"I wish I knew," Hugh groaned, closing his eyes and trying to remember a few childhood prayers. The only one that came to mind was something about fourteen angels which hardly fitted the situation. After a moment he looked again, this time behind him. As he had suspected, the broken door did not lead back into the hallway of the apartment building, but into a small bedchamber of decidedly pre-Restoration cast.
"Take it easy," advised Jonathan. "It's hard to get used to at first. And put that thing away--it's a weapon of some kind, I suppose. The last transportee had one that spouted a streamer of purple gas. He was a very unpleasant customer. What do you shoot?"
"Metal slugs," said Hugh, feeling faintly hysterical. "Where am I, anyhow?"
"Outside."
"Outside what?"
"That's the name of the country," the man explained patiently. "My name, by the way, is Jonathan Bell, and this gentleman is Oliver Martin."
"Hugh Tracy. Ph.D., F.R.A.S.," he added automatically. "So now I'm inside Outside, eh? How far am I from New York? I'm all mixed up."
"New York!" exclaimed Martin. "That's a new one. The last one said he was from Tir-nam-beo. At least I'd heard of that before. How did you get here, Tracy?"
"Suddenly," Tracy said succinctly. "One minute I was bashing at the door of Jeremy Wright's apartment, all set to shoot him and get my wife out of there; and then, blooey!"
"Know this Wright fellow very well, or anything about him?"
"No. I've seen him once or twice, that's all. But I know Evelyn's been going to his place quite regularly while I was at the observatory."
Bell pulled a folded and badly soiled bit of paper from his breast pocket, smoothed it out on the splintery table top, and passed it to Hugh. "Look anything like this?" he asked.
"That's him! How'd you get this? Is he here somewhere?"
Bell and Martin both smiled. "It never fails," the younger man commented. "That's Yero, the ruler of this country during fall seasons. He just assumed power again three months ago. That picture comes off the town bulletin board, from a poster announcing his approaching marriage."
"Look," Hugh said desperately. "It isn't as if I didn't like your country, but I'd like to get back to my own. Isn't there some way I can manage it?"
"Sorry," Martin said. "We can't help you there. I suppose the best thing for you to do is to consult some licensed astrologer or thaumaturgist; he can tell you what to do. There are quite a few good magicians in this town--they all wind up here eventually--and one of them ought to be able to shoot you back where you belong."
"I don't put any stock in that humbug. I'm an astronomer."
"Not responsible for your superstitions. You asked my advice, and I gave it."
"Astrologers!" Hugh groaned. "Oh, my lord!"
The book keeps going
Keep reading, and see it illustrated
Reading is free forever. Sign up and watch scenes appear while you read.
Scenes Storieta drew for other classics.
