The Dark Side by Damon Knight (ed.) Read Free Book Online Page A

casually down toward the gutter. Thereafter he clung as close to the wall as he could, and kept beneath the overhanging second stories. Walking thus, with his eyes on the sole-punishing cobbles, deep in puzzlement, his progress was presently arrested by collision with a mountain.
    When his eyes finally reached the top of it, it turned out to be a man, a great muscular thug clad in expensive blue velvet small-clothes and a scarlet cape like an eighteenth century exquisite. Was there no stopping this kaleidoscope of anachronism?
    “Weah’s ya mannas?” the apparition roared. “Move out!”
    “What for?” Hugh replied in his austere classroom tone. “I don’t care to be used as a sewage pail any more than you do.”
    “Ah,” said the giant. “Wise guy, eh? Dunno ya bettas, eh?” There was a whistling sound as he drew a thin sword which might have served to dispatch whales. Hugh’s Royal Society reserve evaporated and he clawed frantically for his automatic, but before the double murder was committed the giant lowered his weapon and bent to stare more closely at the diminutive doctor.
    “Ah,” he repeated. “Ya a transportee, eh?”
    “I guess so,” Tracy said, remembering that Martin had used the word.
    “Weah ya from?”
    “Brooklyn,” Hugh said hopefully.
    The giant shook his head. “Weah you guys think up these here names is a wonda. Well, ya dunno the customs, that’s easy t’see.”
    He stepped aside to let Hugh pass.
    “Thank you,” said Hugh with a relieved sigh. “Can you tell me where I can find an astrologer?” He still could not pronounce the word without choking.
    “Ummmm—most of ’em are around the squaah. Ony, juss between you an’ me, buddy, I’d keep away from there till the p’rade’s ova. Yero’s got an orda out fa arrestin’ transportees.” The giant nodded pleasantly. “Watch ya step.” He stalked on down the street.
    Looking after him, Hugh was startled to catch a brief glimpse of a man dressed in complete dinner clothes, including top hat, crossing the street and rounding a corner. Hoping that this vision from his own age might know something significant about this screwy world, he ran after him, but lost him in the traffic. He found nothing but a nondescript and unhappy alley-cat which ran at his approach.
    Discouraged, Hugh went back the way he had come and set out in search of the public square and an astrologer. As he walked, he gradually became conscious of a growing current of people moving in the same direction, a current which was swelled by additions from every street and byway they passed. There was a predominance of holiday finery, and he remembered the giant’s words about a parade. Well, he’d just follow the crowd; it would make finding the square that much easier.
    Curious snatches of conversation reached his ears as he plodded along. “… Aye, in the square, sir; one may hope that it bodes us some change…” “… Of Yero eke, that a younge wyfe he gat his youthe agoon, and withal…” “… An’ pritnear every time dis guy toins up, yiz kin count on gittin’ it in the neck…” “… Oft Seyld Yero sceathena threatum, hu tha aethlingas ellen fremedon…”
    Most of the fragments were in English, but English entirely and indiscriminantly mixed as to century. Hugh wondered if the few that sounded foreign were actually so, or whether they were some Saxon or Jutish ancestor of English—or, perhaps, English as it might sound in some remote future century. If that latter were so, then there might be other cities in Outside where only old, modern and future French was spoken, or Russian, or—
    The concept was too complex to entertain. He remembered the giant’s warning, and shook his head. This world, despite the obvious sweating reality of the crowd around him and the lumpy pavement beneath his feet, was still too crazy to be anything but a phantom. He was curious to see this Yero, who looked so inexplicably like Jeremy Wright, but he could