The Wind Between the Worlds Read online

  The communicators were chirping busily.

  “Some of the rulers must be catching on and don’t like it,” Ptheela guessed.

  To Vic’s surprise, though, several did like it, and were simply sending along hopes for success. Etchinbal’s message was short, but it tingled along Vic’s nerves: “It is good to have friends.”

  Bennington was reporting by normal televisor contact, but while things seemed to be improving, they still couldn’t get near enough to be sure. The field was apparently collapsing as the air was fed inside it, though very slowly.

  Ptheela needed no sleep, while Flavin was already snoring. Pat shook her head as Vic started to pull himself up on a table. She led him outside to the back of one of the sheds, where a blanket covered a cot, apparently used by one of the supervisors. She pushed him toward it. As he started to struggle at the idea of using the only soft bed, she dropped onto it herself and pulled him down.

  “Don’t be silly, Vic. It’s big enough for both, and it’s better than those tables.”

  It felt like pure heaven, narrow though it was. Beside him, Pat stirred restlessly. He rolled over, pulling himself closer to her, off the hard edge of the cot, his arm over and around her.

  For a moment, he thought she was protesting, but she merely turned over to face him, settling his arm back. In the half-light, her eyes met his, wide and serious. Her lips trembled briefly under his, then clung firmly. His own responded, reaching for the comfort and end of tension hers could bring.

  “I’m glad it’s you, Vic,” she told him softly. Then her eyes closed as he started to answer, and his own words disappeared into a soft fog of sleep.

  The harsh rasp of a buzzer woke him, while a light blinked on and off near his head. He shook some of the sleep confusion out of his thoughts, and made out an intercom box. Flavin’s voice came over it harshly and he flipped the switch.

  “Vic, where the hell are you? Never mind. Wilkes just woke me up with a call. Vic, it’s helped, but not enough. The field is about even with the building now. It’s stopped shrinking, but we’re still losing air. There’s too much loss at Ecthinbal and at Ee—the engineer there didn’t get the portals capped right, and Ecthinbal can’t do anything. We’re getting about one-third of our air back. And Wilkes can’t hold the pressure for bombing much longer! Get over here.”

  VI

  “Where’s Ptheela?” Vic asked as he came into the transmitter room. She needed no sleep, and should have taken care of things.

  “Gone. Back to Plathgol, I guess,” Flavin said bitterly. “She was flicking out as I woke up. Rats deserting the sinking ship—though I was starting to figure her different. It just shows you can’t trust a plant.”

  Vic swept his attention to the communicator panel. The phones were still busy. They were still patient. Even the doubtful ones were now accepting things; but it couldn’t last forever. Even without the risk, the transmitter banks were needed for regular use. Many did not have inexhaustible power sources, either.

  A new note cut in over the whistling now, and he turned to the Plathgol phone, wondering whether it was Ptheela and what she wanted. The words were English, but the voice was strange.

  “Plathgol calling. This is Thlegaa, Wife of Twelve Husbands, Supreme Plathgol Teleport Engineer, Ruler of the Council of United Plathgol, and hereditary goddess, if you want the whole letterhead. Ptheela just gave me the bad news. Why didn’t you call on us before—or isn’t our air good enough for you?”

  “Hell, do you all speak English?” Vic asked, too surprised to care whether he censored his thoughts. “Your air always smelled good to me. Are you serious?”

  The chuckle this time wasn’t a mere imitation. Thlegaa had her intonation down exactly. “Sonny, up here we speak whatever our cultural neighbors do. You should hear my French nasals and Vromatchkan rough-breathings. And I’m absolutely serious about the offer. We’re pulling the stops off the transmitter housing. We run a trifle higher pressure than you, so we’ll probably make up the whole loss. But I’m not an absolute ruler, so it might be a good idea to speed things up. You can thank me later. Oh—Ptheela’s just been banned for giving you illegal data. She confessed. When you get your Bennington plant working, she’ll probably be your first load from us. She’s packing up now.”

  Flavin’s face held too much relief. Vic hated to disillusion the politician as he babbled happily about always knowing the Plathgolians were swell people. But Vic knew the job was a long way from solved. With Plathgol supplying air, the field would collapse back to the inside of the single transmitter housing, and there should be an even balance of ingoing and outcoming air, which would end the rush of air into the station, and make the circular halls passable, except for eddy currents. But getting into the inner chamber, where the air formed a gale between the two transmitters, was another matter.

  Flavin’s chauffeur was asleep at the wheel of the car as they came out of the Bennington local office, yet instinct seemed to rouse him, and the car cut off wildly for the station. Vic had noticed that the cloud around it was gone, and a mass of people was grouped nearby. The wind that had been sucked in and around it to prevent even a tank getting through was gone now, though the atmosphere would probably show signs of it in freak weather reports for weeks after.

  Pat had obviously figured out the trouble remaining, and didn’t look too surprised at the gloomy faces of the transmitter crew who were grouped near the north entrance. But she began swearing under her breath, as methodically and levelly as a man. Vic was ripping his shirt off as they drew up.

  “This time you stay out,” he told her. “It’s strictly a matter of muscle power against wind resistance, and a man has a woman beat there.”

  “Why do you think I was cursing?” she asked. “Take it easy, though.”

  The men opened a way for him. He stripped to his briefs, and let them smear him with oil to cut down air resistance a final fraction. Eddy currents caught at him before he went in, but not too strongly. Getting past the first shielding wasn’t too bad. He found the second entrance port through the middle shield, and snapped a chain around his waist.

  Then the full picture of what must have happened on Plathgol hit him. Chains wouldn’t have helped when they pulled off the coverings from the entrances, the sudden rush of air must have crushed their lungs and broken their bones, no matter what was done. Imagine volunteering for sure death to help another world! He had to make good on his part.

  He got to the inner portal, but the eddies there were too strong to go farther. Even sticking his eyes beyond the edge almost caught him into the blast between the two transmitters. Then he was clawing his way out again.

  Amos met him, shaking a gloomy head. “Never make it, Vic. Common sense. I’ve been there three times with no luck. And the way that draft blows, it’d knock even a tractor plumb out of the way before it could reach that hunk of glass.”

  Vic nodded. The tanks would take too long to arrive, anyhow, though it would be a good idea to have them called. He yelled to Flavin, who came over on the run, while Vic was making sure that the little regular office building still stood.

  “Order the tanks, if we need them,” he suggested. “Get me a rifle, some hard-nosed bullets, an all-angle vise big enough to clamp on a three-inch edge, and two of those midget telesets for use between house and field. Quick!”

  Amos stared at him, puzzled, but Flavin’s car was already roaring toward Bennington, with a couple of cops leading the way with open sirens. Flavin was back with everything in twenty minutes, and Vic selected two of the strongest, leanest-looking men to come with him, while Pat went down to set the midget pickup in front of the still-operating televisor between the transmitter chamber and the little office. Vic picked up the receiver and handed the rest of the equipment to the other two.

  It was sheer torture fighting back to the inner entrance port, but they made it, and the other two helped to brace him with the chain while he clamped the vise to the edge of the portal, and locked
the rifle into it, somehow fighting it into place. In the rather ill-defined picture on the tiny set’s screen, he could see the huge fragment of glass, out of line from either entrance, between two covering uprights. He could just see the rifle barrel also. The picture lost detail in being transmitted to the little office and picked up from the screen for retransmittal back to him, but it would have to do.

  The rifle was loaded to capacity with fourteen cartridges. He lined it up as best he could and tightened the vise, before pulling the trigger. The bullet ricocheted from the inner shield and headed toward the glass—but it missed by a good three feet.

  He was close on the fifth try, not over four inches off. But clinging to the edge while he pulled the trigger was getting harder, and the wind velocity inside was tossing the bullets off course.

  He left the setting, fired four more shots in succession before he had to stop to rest. They were all close, but scattered. That could keep up all day, seemingly.

  He pulled himself up again and squeezed the trigger. There was no sound over the roar of the wind—and then there was suddenly a sound, as if the gale in there had stopped to cough.

  A blast of air struck, picking all three men up and tossing them against the wall. He’d forgotten the lag before the incoming air could be cut! It could be as fatal as the inrush alone.

  But the gale was dying as he hit the wall. His flesh was bruised from the shock, but it wasn’t serious. Plathgol had managed to make their remote control cut out almost to the micro-second of the time when the flow to them had stopped, or the first pressure released—and transmitter waves were supposed to be instantaneous.

  He tasted the feeling of triumph as he crawled painfully back. With this transmitter off and the others remote controlled, the whole battle was over. Ecthinbal had keyed out automatically when Earth stopped sending. From now on, every transmitter would have a full set of remote controls, so the trouble could never happen again.

  He staggered out, unhooking the chain, while workmen went rushing in. Pat came through the crowd, with a towel and a pair of pants, and began wiping the oil off him while he tried to dress. Her grin was a bit shaky. He knew it must have looked bad when the final counterblast whipped out.

  Amos looked up glumly, and Vic grinned at him. “All over, Amos.”

  The man nodded, staring at the workmen who were dragging out the great pieces of glass from the building. His voice was strained, unnatural. “Yeah. Common sense solution, Vic.”

  Then his eyes swung aside and his face hardened. Vic saw the Envoy shoving through, with two wiry men behind him. The Envoy nodded at Vic, but his words were addressed to Amos. “And it should have been common sense that you’d be caught, Amos. These men are from your F. B. I. They have the men who paid you, and I suppose the glass will prove that it was a normal capsule, simply shocked with superhot spray and overdosed with supersonics. Didn’t you realize that your easy escape to Plathgol was suspicious?”

  Pat had come up; her voice was unbelieving. “Amos!”

  Amos swung back then. “Yeah, Pat. I’d do it again, and maybe even without the money. You think I like these God damned animals and plants acting so uppity? I liked it good enough before they came. Maybe I didn’t get rid of them, but I sure came close.”

  The two men were leading him away as he finished, and Pat stared after him, tears in her eyes.

  The Envoy broke in. “He’ll get a regular trial in your country. It looks better for the local governments to handle these things. But I’ll see if he can’t get a lighter sentence than the men who hired him. You did a good job, Vic—you and Pat and Flavin. You proved that Earth can cooperate with other worlds. That is the part that impresses the Council as no other solution could have. Your world and Plathgol have already been accepted officially as full members of the Council now, under Ecthinbal’s tutelage. We’re a little easier about passing information and knowledge to planets that have passed the test. But you’ll hear all that in the announcement over the network tonight. I’ll see you again. I’m sure of that.”

  He was gone, barely in time to clear space for Ptheela, as she came trooping up with eight thin, wispy versions of herself in tow. She chuckled. “They promoted me before they banished me, Pat. Meet my eight strong husbands. Now I’ll have the strongest seed on all Earth. Oh, I almost forgot. A present for you and Vic.”

  Then she was gone, leading her husbands toward Flavin’s car, while Vic stared down at a particularly ugly tsiuna in Pat’s hands. He twisted his mouth resignedly.

  “All right, I’ll learn to eat the stuff,” he told her. “I suppose I’ll have to get used to it. Pat, will you marry me?”

  She dropped the tsiuna as she came to him, her lips reaching up for his. It wasn’t until a month later that he found tsiuna tasted better than chicken.

  ABOUT GALAXY MAGAZINE

  The first issue of Galaxy, dated October 1950, already heralded to the highest standards of the field. The authors it published regularly contributed to the leading magazine Astounding, writing a kind of elegant and humanistic science fiction which although not previously unknown had always been anomalous. Its founding editor, H. L. Gold (1914–1996), was a science fiction writer of some prominence whose editorial background had been in pulp magazines and comic books; however, his ambitions were distinctly literary, and he was deliberately searching for an audience much wider and more eclectic than the perceived audience of science fiction. His goal, he stated, was a magazine whose fiction “Would read like the table of contents of a literary magazine or The Saturday Evening Post of the 21st century, dealing with extrapolation as if it were contemporary.” The magazine, although plagued by distribution difficulties and an Italian-based publisher (World Editions), was an immediate artistic success, and when its ownership was transferred with the issue of August 1951 to its printer Robert M. Guinn, it achieved financial stability for the remainder of the decade.

  Galaxy published every notable science fiction writer of its first decade and found in many writers who would become central figures: Robert Sheckley, James E. Gunn, Wyman Guin, and F. L. Wallace, among others. Galaxy revivified older writers such as Frederik Pohl and Alfred Bester (whose first novel, The Demolished Man, was commissioned and directed page by page by Gold). John Campbell fought with Astounding and remained an important editor, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (inaugurated a year before Galaxy) held to high standards of literary quality while spreading its contents over two fields, but Galaxy was incontestably the 1950s’ flagship magazine for the acidly satiric, sometimes profoundly comic aspect of its best contributions. Galaxy had a lasting effect not only upon science fiction but upon literature itself. J.G. Ballard stated that he had been deeply affected by Galaxy. Alan Arkin, an actor who became a star after 1960 and won an Oscar in the new millennium, contributed two stories in the mid-fifties.

  At this point Gold was succumbing to agoraphobia, physical ills, and overall exhaustion (some of this perhaps attributable to his active service during WWII) against which he had struggled from the outset. (There is creditable evidence that Frederik Pohl was the de facto editor during Gold’s last years.) Gold would return some submissions with notes like: “Garbage,” “Absolute Crap.” Isaac Asimov noted in his memoir “Anthony Boucher wrote rejection slips which read like acceptances. And Horace wrote notes of acceptance which felt like rejections.” Despite this, the magazine retained most of its high standard and also some of its regular contributors (William Tenn, Robert Sheckley, Pohl himself). Others could no longer bear Gold’s imperiousness and abusiveness.

  ABOUT SCIENCE FICTION NOVELETTES AND NOVELLAS

  In the view of James E. Gunn, science fiction as a genre finds its peak in the novella (17,500–40,000 words) and novelette (7,500–17,500 words). Both forms have the length to develop ideas and characters fully but do not suffer from padding or the hortatory aspect present in most modern science fiction novels. The longer story-form has existed since science fictions inception with the April
1926 issue of Amazing Stories, but Galaxy developed the form to a consistent level of sophistication and efficiency and published more notable stories of sub-novel length than any other magazine during the 50s… and probably in any decade.

  The novella and novelette as forms make technical and conceptual demands greater, perhaps even greater than the novel, and Galaxy writers, under founding editor H. L. Gold’s direction, consistently excelled in these lengths. Gold’s most memorable story, “A Matter of Form” (1938) was a long novelette, and he brought practical as well as theoretical lessons to his writers, who he unleashed to develop these ideas. (John Campbell of course, had also done this in the 40s and continued in the 50s to be a directive editor.) It is not inconceivable that many or even most of the contents of the 1950’s Galaxy were based on ideas originated by Gold: golden technology becomes brass and jails its human victims when it runs amok—is certainly one of his most characteristic.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Lester del Rey (1915–1993) was one of the ten or twelve writers most closely associated with John W. Campbell’s “Golden Age” 1940’s Astounding Science Fiction. His most famous story is probably the 1938 robot romance “Helen O’Loy”, his best the 1942 novella “Nerves”, a prescient documentary of catastrophe in a nuclear plant, expanded in the 1950’s to novel length. Del Rey was among the early group of prominent Campbell writers who Horace Gold pursued for Galaxy; “The Wind Between the Worlds” was his second contribution to the magazine. (His first was the time paradox story “It Comes Out Here” which appeared a month earlier, it was a Campbell reject long lost which del Rey reconstructed from memory.)

  Del Rey, noted for his humanistic and often sentimental work, published a controversial religious (or anti-religious) novella, “For I Am A Jealous People” in Fred Pohl’s 1956 Star Short Novels and slowly drifted from magazine fiction to juvenile novels (some of them ghosted by Paul Fairman) in the late 50’s. His editorial background (the short-lived Space Science Fiction in 1952 and an earlier term at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency) led him in the mid-seventies to become one of the two founding editors, with his wife Judy-Lynn of Ballantine’s Del Rey Books where he became a powerful editor of some very successful fantasy novels. (Terry Brooks’ Sword of Shannara was an early discovery.) Judy-Lynn died in 1986 at the age of 43, at the top of her career, Lester slowly drifted into semi- and then full retirement and died a recluse. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1991.