“How about the rest of them? Anything as bad as this?”
“No, this is the worst,” said Mary.
“Will you look at this,” said the Brigadier. “I never saw the like.”
He stepped aside so that Lansing could look through the peephole. The terrain was jagged, not a single level surface, and it took a few seconds before Lansing could make out the reason. Then he saw that the entire surface of the place, if it actually had a surface, was covered by waist-high pyramids, their bases neatly fit together. There was no way of telling whether the recurring pyramids were the actual surface or whether some busybody, for whatever reason, had set the pyramids in place. Each pyramid rose to a sharp point. Any intruder, attempting to make its way through the maze, would run an excellent chance of becoming impaled.
“I must say,” said the Brigadier, “that’s the neatest abatis I have ever seen. Even heavy armor would have some difficulty getting through it.”
“Do you think that’s what it is?” asked Mary. “A fortification?”
“It could be,” said the Brigadier, “but I see no logic for it. There is no strongpoint I see that it might be guarding.”
That was true. The field of pyramids was all that could be seen. They continued to the horizon and there was nothing else.
“I don’t suppose we’ll ever know,” said Lansing, “what it really is.”
The Parson said, behind them, “There’s a way to know. Unbolt the lugs and open the door and walk out into…”
“No,” the Brigadier insisted, positively, “that’s the one thing we can’t take a chance on doing. Those doors could be traps. Open one of them and take one step beyond the threshold and you may find there’s no longer any door, that you’ve stepped into the world with no way to get back.”
“You have no trust in anything,” said the Parson. “You call everything a trap.”
“It is my military training,” said the Brigadier, “and it stands me in good stead. It has saved me from a lot of foolish moves.”
“There’s just one more,” Mary told Lansing, “and it’s the saddest thing. Don’t ask me why it’s sad. It just is, that’s all.”
It was sad. Face pressed against the peephole, he saw the deep darkness of a woodland glen. The trees that grew along the hillside that shut in the glen were angular and crooked — deformed trees that gave the impression of very aged men hobbling, for there was no movement, no wind to stir the trees. And that, thought Lansing, might be a part of the sadness, forever being frozen in an agony of motion. Deeply embedded, mossy boulders loomed among the trees, and down in the bottom of the deep ravine, Lansing knew, there would be running water, but it would not run with a happy sound. Yet he could not pin down the sadness of the scene — depressing, yes, it was a depressing place, but why should it be so sad?
He turned away and looked at Mary. She shook her head at him. “Don’t ask me,” she said. “I have no idea.”
16
They had built up the fire to give some warmth and comfort — warmth, for the sun was going down and it was chilly inside the building. Now they sat around and talked.
“I would like to think,” said the Brigadier, “that the doors might hold the answer to what we’re looking for, but I can’t bring myself to think so.”
“It’s quite apparent to me,” said the Parson, “that they are doors to other worlds. If we essayed to enter them…”
“I’ve told you,” said the Brigadier, “that the doors are traps. Start messing around with one of them and you may find there’s no way of coming back.”
“Apparently,” Mary began, “the people who occupied this city were much concerned with other worlds. Not only do we have the doors, but there’s the graphics tank. What still can be seen in it must be another world.”
“What we don’t know,” said Sandra, “is whether they are other actual worlds or landscapes of the mind. It has occurred to me that all of it may be no more than art — perhaps from our point of view a rather unconventional art form, but we can’t pretend to know all the forms that art might take.”
“That sounds to me like utter nonsense,“ said the Brigadier. ”No artist in his right mind would force a viewer to peek through a hole to see what he had created. He’d want to hang it on a wall where everyone could see it, everyone at once.”
“You’re approaching the whole concept from a narrow viewpoint,” Sandra told him. “How are you to know what an artist wants or what medium he would choose to work in? Perhaps the peephole method might be the one way he could bring a viewer close to what he’d done. Forcing the viewer to concentrate upon the art itself, shutting him off from all outside distractions. And the moods — did you notice that each of the peepholes had a well-established mood, each one different, each one appealing to a different emotional perception? In that way alone it could be the truest form of art.”
“I still don’t think it’s art,” said the Brigadier, being stubborn. “I think they are doors to other worlds and we’d best keep away from them.”
“It seems to me we’re neglecting one thing,” said Mary. “The maps that Edward and Jurgens found. As far as I can see, none of them is a map of this place. Maybe they are maps of other places that we should know about Perhaps even maps of some of the worlds we saw through the doors. If that’s the case, there must be a way of going into them and getting back again.”
“That may well be true,” said the Brigadier, “but to do that you’d have to know how to do it, and we don’t.”
“The maps may represent other parts of this world we’re on,” said Jurgens. “We may not recognize them as such because we have seen but a small portion of this world.”
“It seems to me,” said Lansing, reaching for the maps, “that there is one that could be of this part of the world. Yes, here’s the one.” He unfolded the map and spread it out on the floor. “Look, here’s something that could be this city. A cross-hatched area that might be a conventional sign for a city, and what seems to be a road leading from it, the trail we followed. And, here, this black square could be the inn.”
The Brigadier hunched forward to study the map.
“Yes, there is something that could be the city,” he said, “and a line connecting it with another point that could be the inn. But what about the cube? There’s nothing there to represent the cube. Certainly the mapmaker would not have missed the cube.”
“Maybe the map was made before the cube was built,” said Jurgens.
“That could be true,” said Sandra. “The cube looked new to me.”
“We’ll have to ponder on it awhile longer,” said the Brigadier. “What we’re doing now is talking off the tops of our heads, saying whatever comes to mind. Maybe all of us should give further thought to the situation, then we can talk again.”
The Parson rose slowly to his feet. “I’m going for a stroll,” he said. “A breath of fresh air may serve to clear the head. Does anyone want to go along with me?” “I think I would,” said Lansing.
Outside, in the plaza, the shadows were deepening. The sun was now gone and soon night would be closing in. The jagged, broken outlines of the buildings surrounding the plaza rose dark against the sunset sky. Walking along beside the Parson, Lansing felt, for the first time, the ancient aura of the place.
The Parson must have experienced the same sensation, for he said, “This place is half as old as time and it bears down upon one. As if it is possible to feel the weight of centuries resting on one’s shoulders. Time has eroded its very stones. It is becoming one with the land on which it stands. Had you, Mr. Lansing, noticed that?”
“I think I have,” said Lansing. “There’s an unusual feel to it.”