Down again, and a mouthful of blood. Must have hit harder that time, square on the face. A good thing, maybe. Helps to clear the head. Where was I going? Oh, yes. Had to go along and warn poor old B. Can’t let the poor fellow walk in all unsuspecting. Have to get there first… still have the slug gun… finish off bogie man…
I was dimly aware of a door resisting as I leaned against it, then swinging wide, and I was falling, tumbling down stairs, bouncing, head over heels, slow and easy like a pillow falling—a final slam against the gritty, icy floor, the weight, and the pain…
A long trip this. Getting up again, feeling the cold coming up the legs now like slow poison… cloud of brown gas, spreading up the legs, across the city. Have to warn them, tell them…
But they don’t believe. Fools. Don’t believe. God, how it hurts, and the long dark corridor stretching away, and the light swelling and fading, swelling again—
There he is! God, what a monster. Poor monster, hurt, crouched in the corner, rocking and moaning. Brought it on himself, the gas-spreading son of a bearskin rug! Sees me now, scrambling up. And look at those teeth! Makes old Dzok look like a grass-eater. Coming at me now. Get the gun out, feel it slap the palm, hold it, squeeze—
The gun was falling from my numbed hand, skidding on the floor, and I was groping for it, feeling with hands like stumps, seeing the big shape looming over me—
To hell with the gun. Can’t press the firing stud anyway. Speed, that’s all you’ve got now, m’ lad. Hit him low, let his weight do the job, use your opponent’s strength against him, judo in only five easy lessons, class starts Monday—
A blow like a runaway beer truck and I was skidding across the floor, and even through the suit I heard the sickening crunch! as the massive skull of the Hagroon struck the corner of a steel case, the ponderous slam! as he piled against the floor. I was on hands and knees again, not feeling the floor anymore, not feeling anything—just get on your feet once more and make sure…
I pulled myself up with the help of a big box placed conveniently beside me, took three wavering steps, bent over him. I saw the smear of blood, the thin ooze of fluid from the gaping wound above the ear, the black-red staining the inside of the helmet. Okay, Mr. Hagroon. You put up a good scrap, but that low block and lady luck were too much for you, and now—
I heard a noise from the door. There was a man there, dim in the wavering light of fading consciousness. I leaned, peering, with a strange sense of déjà vu, the seen-before…
He came toward me in slow-motion, and I blinked, wiped my hand across the steamed-over faceplate. He was in midair, in a dream leap, hands reaching for me. I checked myself, tried to back away, my hand outflung as though to hold back some unspeakable fate—
Long, pink sparks crackled from his hand to mine as he hung like a diver suspended in midair. I heard a noise like fat frying, and for one unbelievable instant glimpsed the face before me—
Then a silent explosion turned the world to blinding white, hurling me into nothingness.
Chapter Sixteen
It was a wonderful bed, wide and cool and clean, and the dream was wonderful too. Barbro’s face, perfect as an artist’s conception of the goddess of the hunt, framed by her dark red hair in a swirl of silken light. Just behind the rosy vision there were a lot of dark thoughts clamoring to be dragged out and reviewed, but I wasn’t going to get hooked on that one. No sir, the good old dream was good enough for me, if only it wouldn’t go away and leave me remembering dark shapes that moved in foul tunnels—and pain, and loss, the sickness of failure and dying hope—
The dream leaned closer and there were bright tears in the smoke-grey eyes, but the mouth was smiling, and then it was against mine, and I was kissing warm, soft lips—real lips, not the dream kind that always elude you. I raised a hand, felt a weight like an anvil stir, saw a vast bundle of white bandage swim into view.
“Barbro!” I said, and heard my voice emerge as a croak.
“Manfred! He’s awake! He knows me!”
“Ah, a man would have to be far gone indeed to fail to know you, my dear,” a cool voice said. Another face appeared, less pretty than the other, but a good face all the same. Baron von Richthofen smiled down at me, looking concerned and excited at the same time.
“Brion, Brion! What happened?” Barbro’s cool fingertips touched my face. “When you didn’t come home, I called, and Manfred told me, you’d gone—and then they searched the building, and found footprints, burned—”
“Perhaps you’d better not press him now,” Manfred murmured.
“No, of course not.” A hot tear fell on my face, and Barbro smiled and wiped it away. “But you’re safe now, that’s all that matters. Rest, Brion. You can think about it later…”
I tried to speak, to tell her it was all right, not to go…
But the dream faded, and sleep washed over me like warm, scented soapsuds, and I let go and sank down in its green depths.
The next time, I woke up hungry. Barbro was sitting by the bed, looking out the window at a tree in full spring leaf, golden green in the afternoon sun. I lay for a while, watching her, admiring the curve of her cheek, the line of her throat, the long, dark lashes—
She turned, and a smile like the sun coming out after a spring rain warmed me all the way to my bandaged heels.
“I’m okay now,” I said. This time the voice came out hoarse but recognizable.
There was a long, satisfying time then, of whispered words and agreeable nonsense, and as many feather-soft kisses as we could fit in. Then Manfred came in, and Hermann, and Luc, and things got a bit more brisk and businesslike.
“Tell me, Brion,” Manfred said mock-sternly. “How did you manage to leave my office, disappear for half an hour, only to be discovered unconscious beside some sort of half-ape, and dressed like a wanderer from a fancy dress ball in a variety of interesting costumes, wearing a three-day beard, with twenty-seven separate and distinct cuts, abrasions, and bruises, to say nothing of second-degree burns, frostbite, and a broken tooth?”
“What day is it?” I demanded.
He told me. I had been unconscious for forty-eight hours. Two days since the scheduled hour for the invasion—and the Hagroon hadn’t appeared.
“Listen,” I said. “What I’m going to tell you is going to be a little hard to take, but in view of the corpse you found beside me, I expect you to do your best…”
“A truly strange creature, Brion,” Hermann said. “It attacked you, I presume, which would account for some of the wounds, but as for the burns…”
I told them. They listened. I had to stop twice to rest, and once to eat a bowl of chicken broth, but I covered everything.
“That’s it,” I finished. “Now go ahead and tell me I dreamed it all. But don’t forget to explain how I dreamed that dead Hagroon.”
“Your story is impossible, ridiculous, fantastic, mad, and obviously the ravings of a disordered mind,” Hermann said. “And I believe every word of it. My technicians have reported to me strange readings on the Net Surveillance instruments. What you have said fits the observations. And the detail of your gambit of readjusting the portal, so as to shun the invading creatures into a temporal level weeks in the future; I find that of particular interest—”