Land Beyond the Map

Colla motioned to them and they all walked slowly through the vast hall, eagerly talking, until they reached the wall and a small door that led into a comfortable lounge furnished in tasteful Terran fashion. As they sat down, Polly said: “The other dimensions are universes like ours; that part of it all is easily understood. But what took me longer to grasp was that, if that was so, then space travel, too, must exist in other dimensions. The Loti are not native to the Earth — this other Earth — they traveled here from their own planet in a solar system light years away, seeking new worlds to colonize. Oh, Rolley, they are a good people, kind and thoughtful. When they landed on Earth they found it in the most frightful condition of primeval chaos—”

“The Map Country?”

“They’ve tamed it considerably. What we saw was only a flea-bite to what they had to contend with. They built this huge city and these machines to subdue the convulsions of the planet. It was a hard furrow they had to hoe. But they were winning, creating a new world for their children—”

“Children!” Crane stared at the clustered Loti, swaying and shining at the door, those great mournful eyes staring unwinkingly in. “Lozenges of light—?”

“Oh, Rolley; I thought you were with it! The Loti are people, not dissimilar to us, I’m told. But they’re resting far below in their vaults. The living lights are only their means of looking and traveling in the outer world. Like perambulating television cameras, if you like. They’re physically exhausted with the toil of subduing this world; and they’re failing. Really, they’re beaten. The ship is ready to take them back across the empty reaches of space to their own world.”

“So the Loti did a spot of space travel in their own universe, came to the Earth’s twin and found it to be a pretty dud place for colonization.” Crane could understand that well enough, and sympathized with the defeat the Loti had suffered, their sadness and depression. Those mournful eyes were enough to give anyone the willies. “But what about McArdle, or Trangor?”

Allan Gould said: “He’s a nasty piece of work, skipper. Apparently the Loti accidentally stumbled across the method of crossing the dimensions; something to do with immense strains imposed on the fabric of the universes by the nature of chaos in this place — Polly calls it the Map Country. The Loti prefer to call it the Unmapped Country.”

“Figures. So?”

“McArdle was their chief manipulator. That means he was a sort of electrical and mechanical engineer, responsible for designing the Wardens and the others to frighten off everything from the road. The road, is the first thing the Loti built. From it they tamed the rest of the country. Well, McArdle spotted our Earth and something happened to him.”

“There’s a black sheep in every race,” Polly said, thoughtfully. “McArdle was weak from the Loti point of view. He saw our wonderful Earth, and this horrible place here—”

“And he jumped to the logical conclusion.” Crane stirred restlessly on the seat. “But if the Loti are packing up shop and letting everything run down, why haven’t they gone home already?

Why stay on?”

“That proves you don’t know the Loti!” Sharon spoke with eager intentness. “They’re wonderful! While McArdle was still at large in our Earth and the map was not accounted for, the Loti refused to cut for it and run home. They knew the damage McArdle could do — and they stayed on trying to get the map themselves. For if McArdle regained his map, and put his plans into high gear—”

“Yeah,” Crane said, standing up. “I see that all right. You’d have an invasion. He intends to take it all over—”

“And the Loti cannot allow that. They colonize only worlds where the intelligence level of the inhabitants has not risen above a quite low level. War and invasions are taboo to them.”

Crane began to pace up and down, thinking. “Why haven’t the Loti spilled over into another one of the worlds in a different dimension?”

“Good question,” said Polly. “But it seems Earth is at a nexus of highly developed dimensions. The Loti have discovered many worlds; but each is occupied. And some queer setups they’ve run across, too. Races where people are used as computers; worlds where people struggle to lose every bit of wealth they’re born with; there is one particularly nasty lot called the Porvone, who are just golden caps, who squat on people’s heads and control them. The Loti debated a long while whether or not to take over there; but their laws are stringent. Just because an intelligent society is evil in their eyes does not stop it from being an intelligent society and taboo to takeover.”

Crane began to warm to the Loti. And he thought of McArdle out there in the Unmapped Country. No wonder the Tanks hadn’t attacked — they’d been told by McArdle not to attack the man who’d made them. Simple.

“McArdle’s up to something,” he said, worried. “He’s out there now — he seems to have the Loti frightened to death. Anyway — how come he looks like a human being?”