Rocket to Limbo

Lars tried it. He conjured up an image of weariness and hunger that would have torn the heart out of a statue, and visualized a steaming hot shower and a clean warm bed. To his amazement the three City-people caught the images perfectly. A rush of sympathy and apology poured from their minds. We are tiring you and you need rest. Come, we will make you comfortable. Later we will—talk.

“But what about the others?” Lars said aloud. “They have no food. Kennedy and Marstom are sick. And there are two more down on the other side of the mountain.”

“They’re here,” Petter said quickly. “The others will be brought in, don’t worry. Just come along now.”

Lars needed no further urging. He followed the strange people into the city.

It was not until then that Lars got a good look at the city. Tired as he was, he watched the jumbled panorama spread before him with eyes wide with amazement. It was like a city built with brightly colored children’s blocks of every imaginable size and shape. There were gaudy arches and glistening spires. Sweeping walkways moved between the buildings that hung individually in the air, some high, some low, some large and square, some low and discoid, some round and transparent as bubbles, spinning slowly through the air. There seemed to be no planning of the city; it hung there willy-nilly, yet in its very disorganization there was a wild incredible sort of beauty. Nothing here was ugly. There was no dirt, no grayness. The City-people were everywhere, thronging the walkways and arches, moving up over the sweeping curves of bridges, and everywhere the buzz of activity and life washed over Lars like a wave. There were ancient City-people with long beards and white hair; many were young with the same peculiar young-old appearance that the woman who was leading them had shown. An occasional woman passed with a pink baby in her arms, and a string of youngsters fell in behind them, watching with great curiosity as they moved through the city.

Their method of travel was also confusing. They started off walking, or so it seemed to Lars, yet they seemed to move great distances with very little effort, and in very little time. One instant they were moving up on an arching bridge; the next moment the bridge was behind them. Lars shook his head sharply and looked at Peter in confusion.

“You’ll get used to it,” Peter said. “They’re only ‘walking’ in deference to us.”

“How do they usually get around?”

“I’m not sure what you’d call it. You know the tricks some of the teleps back home use—putting a ball in a box, and then making it pop through without opening the box? It seems to be pretty much the same. They want to go somewhere, and zip there they are! They took me out that way once, and I was sick all over everything. Since then they’ve slowed down to a fast run for me.”

They had been moving toward a long, low building of pale blue color, floating high above the majority of the buildings. This one had a crystal spire that rose a hundred feet in the air and sparkled like an icicle in the sunlight. Now, even as Lars watched, they were suddenly inside the building in a long sloping corridor. It seemed to be a library or lounge. Along one side curving sheets of plastic material stood near the wall, with a bank of control buttons at the side. A closer,look revealed them to be viewing plates, for one of them was glowing a dull blue, but there was no image, that Lars could see, on the screen. Quite abruptly the blue screen flickered and blinked out, becoming dull gray like the rest.

“Our ‘study’,” Peter said softly. “We have living quarters at the end there.”

They approched the end of the corridor, where a tall thin door-like slab lay against the pale green wall. Its fluted edges were visible, clinging to the wall, and there was no knob. The three City-people stopped, looking around at Lars. Once again he felt the feathery flutter of their thought-fingers in his mind. For you. Your quarters. You will find food and sleeping clothes inside.

He nodded, and waited for them to open the door, but nothing happened. The three were watching him closely. “They want you to open the door,” Peter whispered.

“But there’s no knob.”

They only waited a moment as Lars stared helplessly at the door. Then he felt, rather than heard, a tiny sigh from the City-people. The woman touched the door with her finger, and it dissolved into mist, then vanished, revealing a large comfortable room beyond. He stepped in, still feeling the wave of disappointment in the City-peoples’ minds, and the fragments of thought: He is like the other. But perhaps with lessons he too—