22-07-2023

  Author John Brunner is beginning to show his versatility

  as a writer in the wide variety of plots that he uses

  and we feel that the fantasy story will eventually be his

  best medium. This time he uses the parallel worlds

  theme but with an extremely fresh approach.

  A TIME TO REND

  By JOHN BRUNNER

  ——

  Illustrated by Quinn

  ——

  I

  Even though Tippet Lane was only some four paces wide, he wasn’t going to make it.

  Colin Hooper realised it a little too late. Gasping, almost as if he was physically drowning in the sudden redoubled downpour, he scrambled into the half-shelter of a doorway, wondering how it was possible to be so thoroughly drenched in a matter of seconds.

  “ What a bloody night !” he said angrily, noticing only after he had spoken that the doorway was already occupied—and by a woman, at that. He caught the light-blue sheen of her hooded macintosh as she turned and glanced at him. His first automatic guess was that she must be one of the many street-walkers who haunt the area about Shepherd Market ; her voice, when she answered, startled him, for it was low and pleasant.

  “ It’s all of that and some more,” she agreed, sounding amused. Her accent was not quite a Londoner’s, though her o’s tended towards ow and her a’s towards i. “ Do you get much of this sort of thing ?” “ More than we can do with,” he nodded, taking stock of his condition. Water ran down out of his hair into his eyes. “ And this lot looks as if it’s set for a while.”

  The rain pounded and bounced on the roadway ; an occasional halfhearted tremor of thunder shivered in the distance. Cold wind picked the droplets up as they shattered against the ground and tossed them mist-like between the buildings. He hoped for a moment that there was going to be another temporary let-up in the fury of the storm ; then he resigned himself to a long wait.

  He fished in his pocket and brought out his cigarette case, offering it wordlessly to his companion. She took one with a murmur of thanks. Wet finger-marks darkened the sides of his own as he set it to his lips.

  When the woman bent her head towards the flame of his lighter a moment later, he saw her face clearly for the first time, and was so astonished he let the flame go out.

  “ Why—it’s you,” he said blankly.

  “ What on earth do you mean ?” The girl—she was younger than he had guessed—paused with the cigarette between her slender fingers. Colin went on slowly.

  “ You had dinner at the Cresco Restaurant last night, didn’t you ?” he said, and the girl nodded, still looking puzzled. “ The evening before, you came into the bar of the Crux Hotel for a drink. The same afternoon you had travelled on top of an 88 bus—and the evening before that you sat in the stalls at the Neptune theatre. That was the first time I saw you,” he added as an afterthought.

  “ True,” said the girl. “ But how did you know ? You saw me ?”

  “ Noticed you.” Belatedly Colin remembered he still held the lighter and kindled it again. “ I wondered who you were—and why you were alone.” The last few words came out before he could stop himself.

  He knew exactly how her face must look, though he could not make it out in the shadow of her hood : he guessed the quizzical expression in her violet eyes, the slight tilt at the corners of her rather too large mouth, perhaps the faint wrinkle of her wide white forehead under her black hair.

  “ I’m flattered, I suppose,” she said at length. “ That you should remember me I mean.” She shivered and glanced sidelong at the street. “ Isn’t this rain ever going to let up ?”

  Colin had hoped for a moment that she might admit having noticed him ; as it was, he gave an inaudible sigh and ran an irritable hand over his wet red hair. The wind was chilling his feet and legs.

  Then a fractional sound behind him made him glance to see what moved ; it was the door against which they stood huddled. It had swung silently ajar until he could see into the interior of the building ; faint blue light came from beyond. The sound he had heard had been a kind of swishing—brief, inconsequential. It had stopped.

  The girl, sensing his shift of attention, followed his gaze. As she turned, there was a voice from somewhere out of sight.

  “ Would you not care to come in for a moment ? The rain will not stop for nearly fifteen minutes, and it cannot be pleasant to stand outside in damp clothing.”

  Colin caught her eye ; she shrugged, and stepped forward. “ He’s right. Anything’s better than freezing out here.”

  The instant he set foot over the threshold, Colin realised what the swishing had been ; his feet sank into the rich pile of a carpet better than any he had ever stepped on before. Even compared to the dull overcast outside, the light was dim, and its blueness unfamiliar ; it took his eyes a moment to adjust.

  “ What kind of a place is this, anyway ?” said the girl, stopping suddenly a pace ahead of him. Looking past her, Colin knew why she was taken aback.

  Somehow, the place seemed impossibly big—as if it stretched for a mile to left and right. A clever illusion, obviously—but he wished he knew how it had been accomplished, and why.

  Ahead of them, the deep carpet stretched towards a flight of low steps, with four or five risers reaching a height of perhaps two feet. Seeming to float above the dais which formed a continuation of the topmost tread, there was a disc of whitely luminous material looming out of the dimness.

  “ This is damned funny,” he muttered. “ What about the guy who called us inside ? Where’s he ?”

  “ Please come forward,” the voice invited them, as if it had been waiting for him to ask that question. “ We realise you are perhaps startled to see this place, but do not be afraid.”

  Colin made a sudden decision. “ I don’t like this,” he said firmly. He caught at the girl’s sleeve to draw her back. “ He wouldn’t tell us not to be scared if there was nothing to worry about.”

  The girl shook off his hand. She had pushed back the hood of her raincoat. “ Don’t be silly,” she told him. Her eyes were bright. “ I rather like this place. It’s odd—but that’s only because it’s unexpected. Anyway, it’s better than Tippet Lane in a cloudburst.”

  She walked forward ; after a second of irresolute hesitation, Colin followed her.

  As they approached the foot of the steps, the speaker who had invited them in became slowly apparent, almost invisible in a pool of shadow beside the glowing disc over the dais. He stood as still as a statue ; he wore a robe that flowed like silk to his feet.

  They halted at the foot of the steps, and there was a long silence. Colin, acutely aware of the wetness of his collar and shoes, broke it.

  “ Thank you for letting us come out of the rain, but—”

  The robed man gave no sign of hearing them. His voice came again, as bodilessly and sourcelessly as before, without Colin being able to detect the movement of his lips. “ You are Vanessa Sherriff ?” he inquired.

  The girl gave a little start. “ How did you— ?”

  The man ignored her. “ And you are Colin Hooper ?”

  “ Yes, but—”

  “ Look at this disc,” the man commanded, a sudden ring of authority in his tone. In spite of himself, Colin found he was obeying, and that the disc was not a plate of featureless luminescence as he had at first assumed. There was movement on its surface—spiral movement, as if a river of light were pouring into a whirlpool within the material. Fascinated, he tried to follow the stream, tracing it from the edge to the centre, wondering how the effect was achieved.

  His arms and legs were stiff, and very cold. He fumbled for his blankets, thinking himself in bed, until the problem of how a mattress could be so hard penetrated his dull mind. Blinking open his eyes, he looked up into darkness.

  There was the sound of someone stirring near him, and everything came back to him with a rush. He sat up.

  He was on the floor of a dusty room, vacant except for boxes stacked in piles against the wall. A thin wash of yellow from a street lamp flooded through a narrow window against the ceiling. Vanessa—he barely remembered how he knew her name—was struggling to her feet a few paces distant.

  He stood up and caught her as she swayed. “ Are you all right ?” he demanded.

  “ I—I think so.” She put a hand, grimy with the dirt of the floor, to her forehead, leaving a smeared mark when she brought it away. “ What happened ?”

  “ Something damned funny,” said Colin grimly. “ Do you recall anything about it ?”

  Vanessa looked around slowly. “ I know I came into that big blue-lit room. And then the man told us to look at the white disc—but that’s all.” She gave him an appealing glance.

  “ That’s what I remember, too,” Colin nodded. A thought struck him, and he looked at his watch. “ Funny—either we’ve only been unconscious a few minutes, or—” He put his wrist to his ear.

  “ No. It’s stopped. What time do you make it ?”

  Vanessa held up the little watch, shaking back her sleeve, to the light at the window. “ Mine’s stopped too,” she said in a voice which started to tremble on the last word.

  “ Well, we must have been drugged, or something.” Colin turned to see if there was a door visible. “ We’d better get out of here quickly. Whatever happened, I’d like to get hold of that guy in the silk robe.”

  He found the door ; it had a Yale lock on it, and he opened it without difficulty. He had stood back to let Vanessa come up to it before he took in what he saw outside.

  “ I’ll be damned !” he said in a low tone. “ Look—we’re still in Tippet Lane !”

  Vanessa shivered ; he heard the rustle of fabric as she drew her coat about her more tightly. “ And isn’t this the same door ?”

  He pulled the door shut behind them, and they looked out at the drying roadway. “ Yes, I’m sure it’s the same,” Vanessa went on, her breath quickening. “ How did it happen ? How did they do it ?”

  “ I want to know why,” said Colin savagely. He stepped forward, and at that moment the circle of a policeman’s lantern beam raced up the wall and stopped on his face, dazzling him. Vanessa put her hand on his arm and pressed close.

  The constable looked hard at them, wet cape shining on his shoulders. “ Officer—” Colin began, and then paused blankly.

  W hat was he going to say ? That they had been drugged—by whom, they didn’t know—after being lured into an impossible room— which was no longer there—for some purpose they couldn’t guess at ?

  “ Yes ?” The policeman’s voice was unfriendly and harsh.

  Vanessa broke in. “ Have you got the time ?”

  “ It’s about ten past three,” said the constable without looking at his watch. He left the rest of the sentence unspoken, but it was nonetheless an eloquent comment of what he thought of them.

  They started down the alley together ; Colin could feel those unfriendly eyes on the back of his neck. When they were turning the corner, Vanessa gave a nervous laugh.

  “ You could almost hear his mind working,” she said, attempting lightness.

  “Ten past three !” said Colin, the implications suddenly hitting him. He set his watch as he spoke. “ Look, can you believe what happened tonight ?”

  She caught his meaning. “ No. Nor would anyone else, would they ?”

  “ I wish I’d looked around a bit,” Colin reflected. “ I think I’m going to come back tomorrow—” “ You mean today, don’t you ?” A ghost of a smile flitted across Vanessa’s face. “ I know what happened is impossible and ridiculous; so probably there’ll be a full explanation in the morning paper. Some society party with a new twist, perhaps—”

  Colin was winding his watch ; its spindle resisted after less than half a dozen turns, and he lifted it to his ear. “ It still isn’t ticking,” he said in annoyance. “ Must have been damaged ... I’d better see if I can find you a taxi to get home. There’s nothing else this time of night.”

  “ Thanks, that won’t be necessary. I only live five minutes from here.” The violet eyes looked at him thoughtfully. “ You’re soaking, aren’t you ? You’d better come up to my place and get dry and have a cup of coffee before you do anything else.”

  Colin, not pleased by having to face the long cold ride back to his Hampstead flat, accepted gratefully, and started out in silence beside her.

  II

  The flat was three-roomed : smart, with modern decor and one good modern painting on the wall. Colin waited in the middle of the main room while Vanessa, who seemed to have recovered her poise completely during their walk, turned on the electric fires. Crossing to a cupboard, she took out a towel and a terry-cloth dressing gown ; as she turned to give them to him, she caught sight of herself in a mirror on the wall and grimaced at noticing the dirt smeared across her forehead.

  “ Soap, hot water and an airing cupboard,” she told him, pushing open the door to the kitchenette. “ I won’t be a moment.”

  Left alone, Colin peeled off his soaked jacket and shirt and cleansed his hands and the side of his face where he had lain in the dust on the floor. It scarcely occurred to him to wonder at the thoughtfulness Vanessa had shown ; later it was to puzzle him, but at the present time it seemed right, and that was all.

  The dressing gown was meant for someone tall and thin ; it fitted badly on his stocky five feet eight, but its roughness was comforting after the slick coldness of his damp clothing. He sank his hands above the wrists in hot water and waited till the warmth had communicated itself to his bloodstream ; then he looked about him, found a kettle and the percolator, and began to prepare the coffee, still not wondering at anything, least of all how he could accurately guess where everything was kept. He listened to the tap running in the bathroom on the far side of the flat.

  Before Vanessa came out, her dark hair sleek and her ivory skin glowing in contrast with the dark red housecoat she wore, he had two cups filled for them. She sank into the wide sofa and took hers from him with a word of thanks ; sipping it, she nodded.

  “ That dressing gown isn’t your size, I’m afraid,” she said musingly. A question crossed Colin’s mind, and it must have shown in his face, for she added briefly, “ It’s my boy friend’s.”

  Of course. No other comment struck him but that ; how could this glowing woman be otherwise than sought by men ? Colin perched on the side of an armchair and looked at her. “ Tell me about yourself,” he said. “ What do you do ?”

  “ I’m an actress.” Vanessa sounded half-defiant, as if she expected him not to believe her. “ Resting, in the cant phrase—or to put it bluntly, I’m out of work." I wish I’d stayed home.”

  Her accent immediately placed itself in Colin’s mind : Australian, of course. He leaned forward. “ But why ?”

  “ Why am I out of work ? Without being vain, I sometimes wonder about that myself.” She cocked her head and gazed with critical appreciation at her reflection. “ I know I’m good—”

  Her head changed attitude abruptly, like the flickering movement of a bird, and the violet eyes were on him. “ Yes, I know it—in just the same way as you knew that I take sugar and milk in my coffee, how strong I like it brewed, and that I drink it from a breakfast cup and not one of those fiddling little things most people like. Colin—” hearing her use his name for the first time gave him a ridiculous thrill of pleasure “—anyone else would have asked about those things. You didn’t. Who are you ?”

  “ I don’t quite see what you mean.” He affected lightness. “ Colin Hooper, age thirty, single, personnel selector for—” He broke off, seeing the impatience in her eyes. “ All right, so that isn’t what you mean. Up to six weeks ago I was engaged ; I would have been getting married the day after tomorrow, but something went wrong. Since then, I’ve had one extended drinking bout lasting ten days, a week’s recovery from it, and a dose of fever, in the course of which I’ve imagined and dreamed things nearly as strange as what happened to me tonight. And you ?”

  She set her coffee cup down with a frown. “ It’s the last in a series of odd happenings for me, too. I was doing all right Down Under ; I’d had three or four supporting parts in films which made money, I’d had the lead in a good play which folded after four days because it was too good—it really was—and I’d had the offer of a starring role in a new picture. About six weeks ago, too, I—I thought I was offered a contract with a British firm. On the strength of the promise, I threw up everything and flew here. And—” she looked lost and vaguely frightened, “—the man who made the promise doesn’t exist. The firm doesn’t exist. I don’t mean I can’t trace them, either. I must be crazy,” she added with sudden exasperation.

  “ I see,” Colin said thoughtfully. He did see ; he understood now how she had been able to take the strangeness of the night’s events as calmly as he. Strangeness is relative ; once it passes a certain level, the mind adjusts to it. One does not question the lack of logic in a dream, and likewise, when one’s life becomes as unreal as dreaming, acceptance follows automatically.

  They fell silent for a few minutes. Colin was thinking of the vague visions which had peopled his period of emotional breakdown. There was something like a monkey in them ; when he was surrounded by cruel, relentless figures as shadowy as visions but infinitely more dangerous, he turned despairingly to that creature and it aided him— he did not know how. It seemed to him now that the evil persons of that time had worn robes like the man in the impossible room, but he could not be sure that was not an illusion of displaced memory. He could not be sure of anything.

  “ That—whirling disc,” he said as it came back to him. “ You were watching that when everything stopped, weren’t you ?”

 

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