Children of the Gates by Andre Norton Read Free Book Online

speculative, Crocker with accusing, eyes.
    “That ended in ‘45.” Nick searched memory for an account of the conflict that had ended long before he was born, but that to this handful was still vividly a threat.
    “Who won?” demanded Crocker angrily, as if by his answer Nick would be judged.
    “We did—the allies. We invaded and took Germany from one side, the Russians came in from the other—they got Berlin. Hitler killed himself before they got to him. And we dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—then the Japanese surrendered that same year.”
    “Atom bomb?” Crocker no longer sounded angry, but rather dazed.
    “Yes. Wiped out both cities.” Nick remembered the accounts of that and hoped he would not have to go into details.
    “And now—?” the Vicar asked after a pause, while his companions stared at Nick as if he were speaking a foreign language.
    “Well, there’s still trouble. There was the Korean War and the one in Vietnam, and now there’s trouble in South America. China has gone Communist, and Russia still has half of Germany under control—the eastern part. But we’ve made manned landings on the Moon.” He tried to think of what had been progress and not just dreary wrangling. “And now we are planning to put a permanent station into space—besides Skylab. But—I can’t tell you everything that happened. England—they’ve given up the Empire, and they had a Labor government for a long time—it’s been tough over there—awfully high taxes and slipping back—”
    “Forty years, yes, a lot can happen.” The Vicar nodded. “And still wars—”
    “Please.” Linda broke into the quiet that followed his comment. “If you came here from England and we from Ohio—Did you get across the ocean some way? Or is this all just one country?”
    The Vicar shook his head. “No, the general contours of this world seem geographically aligned to those of our own. This continent and England appear much as they must have in a very remote past before men began to tame the land. We were brought to this continent as prisoners. Only by the grace of God were we able to escape. Since then we have been trying to devise a way to return. Only I fear that this world has no ships to offer us. But ours is a very long and complicated story and I would suggest we tell it by degrees, perhaps over some of Mrs. Clapp’s excellently cooked fish. Shall we?”
    Perhaps it was the return to tasks they all knew and had shared for some time that relieved the tension. They got ready for the meal. And passing around the bread Nick had brought apparently made this a feast.
    Hadlett turned a roll about in his fingers. “You never know how much you miss the small things of life”—he used a cliché to express the truth—“until they are taken from you. Bread we cannot produce here. Though Mrs. Clapp has experimented with ground nuts and seeds from a wild grass not unlike oats. It is good to eat bread again.”
    “You said you were brought here as prisoners.” Nick wanted to know the worst of what might now menace them.
    “Ah, yes. It is best that you be warned.” The Vicar swallowed a bite of roll. “This is a very strange world and, though it has not been for want of trying, we have not penetrated very far into its secrets. But we believe that it is somehow parallel with our own, though obviously different. Sometime in the past, we do not know how far past, there was apparently a force set into being that could reach into our own world at special places and draw out people. There are many stories in our own world of mysterious disappearances.”
    Nick nodded. “More and more of those have been collected recently into books. We came from a place that has such a reputation—many disappearances over the years.”
    “Just so. And our church at Minton Parva was situated near a fairy mound—”
    “Fairy mound?” Nick was startled. What was the meaning of that?
    “No, I am not trying in any fashion to