Damon Knight - Beyond the Barrier

“This is an ordinary lie detector, Mr. Naismith,” Lall said, pushing it toward him. She moved her chair quickly, stood up and stepped back. Churan was at the farther wall, watching intently. The gun on its tripod pointed steadily at him.

“Try it,” said Lall. “Pick up a dish in one hand, take the grip of the machine in the other…. Now say, ‘I am not holding the dish.’”

Naismith followed directions. Nothing happened.

“Now say, ‘I am holding the dish.’”

Naismith repeated it after her. The oval bulb flared into pink, hot brightness.

“Now, this is all you have to do,” Lall said breathlessly.

“Put your hand on that grip and say to me, ‘I hate the Lenlu Din.’”

Churan moved his hand slightly: in it was the control box of the automatic gun.

Naismith stiffened, aware that he had let the crisis find him unready. If he refused, he would be shot. If he took the test, and failed—

Once more the images of those bright, bloated people drifted up to the surface of his mind. He examined his own feelings dispassionately. He neither hated nor loved them. To part of his mind they were utterly strange; to another part, they were familiar and almost commonplace….

“Now, Mr. Naismith,” said Lall sharply.

Naismith put his hand on the rounded mushroom-top of the grip. It was a shape that smoothly fitted his palm. He tensed his muscles, without hope—he knew he could not move fast enough to escape the gun. Because he could think of nothing else to do, he said, “I hate the Lenlu Din.”

The oval bulb burned fiercely for a long moment, then slowly faded, glimmered, went out. Naismith heard Lall’s and Churan’s intake of breath, saw them relax and begin to move toward the table.

He stared blankly at the detector, thinking, But that’s impossible!

The staggering thing was that the aliens themselves showed no suspicion. As far as they were concerned, the detector test was obviously conclusive. Lall said briskly, “One more day here will be enough. You will put on the educator headband once more—without tricks, this time, Mr. Naismith. Then it will take you some twelve hours to absorb all you have learned

… the process is sometimes fatiguing, and it is important that you rest during that period. After that,” she finished, “you will be ready to begin building your time vehicle.”

Naismith looked at her sharply, but there was no humor in her expression. “Do you mean that literally?” he demanded.

“I thought—”

“How else can we get you into the City?” she countered.

“You may be positive they will check whatever story you tell.

If you say you materialized in the factory city of Ul in the fifth century before the Founding, they will go there in their own time vehicle to see. Therefore, you must not only tell the story, you must actually be there, building that vehicle, when they come to look. It will take you a little over ten years.”

“Ten years” said Naismith, stunned by the matter-of-factness in her tone.

“Understand this,” she said harshly, leaning toward him.

“It’s that or nothing. Make up your mind.”

Her glance was sullen. Churan, across the room, was looking at him with the same expression, his eyes hooded and dull.

Naismith shrugged. “What choice do I have?” He held out his hand. “Give me the headband.”

… Afterwards, he lay back in a soft chair, his mind a cloudy confusion of new thoughts and images, while the three aliens prepared a meal and ate it.

“We are going to bed now,” Lall said dully to Naismith.

“Your room is there. Till the morning, then.”

They went into their room and closed the door. Naismith sat where he was for a while, then went to the room Lall had pointed out, examined the door controls. There was nothing unusual about them as far as he could determine; the door closed and opened again easily.

He went inside and lay down on the bed, half aware of his surroundings as the stream of memories, voices, faces came and went in his mind. When an hour had passed, he sat up.

He rose, opened the door and listened. There was no sound from the aliens’ room. He closed the door behind him and moved quietly across the lounge. Outside, he followed the red trail, heading directly for the place where Churan had found him a few hours ago.

He passed through the natatorium again, into the gymnasium… and stared with speculative interest at the pieces of equipment lying on the polished floor. Something had been prepared for him here: but what?

He moved closer, bent to examine the black case with the transparencies and dials. It was evidently the control box; three of the dials were calibrated and set. A fourth had only two positions, marked by a red dot and a white one. The pointer lay on the white dot.

Caution held him back, but Naismith had a sense that there were too many things still hidden in the background. Events were sweeping him on, and ignorance was still his most dangerous weakness. Certain risks had to be accepted.

He made up his mind. Kneeling, he turned the dial from white to red, then got to his feet and stepped back.

Not quickly enough.

The far end of the gymnasium darkened suddenly. Out of that blackness, like a vault opening where the far wall should have been, something stirred.

Fear entered the room. It came like a cold wind out of that darkness. Naismith’s fingers were cold; his skin prickled.

Straining his eyes, he could make out a glint of light here, another there, as something impossibly huge came toward him in the blackness. It was the monster of his dream! Two little red eyes stared at him, and there was a faint rattle of bony plates.

The head of the thing began to emerge into the light…

Naismith forced himself to remain still as that immense body came fully into view. It was a shape of tremendous animal power, armored and clawed, many-limbed… but the most frightening thing about it was the look of intelligence, of merciless, ancient wisdom in its eyes….

With a bone-chilling roar, the thing sprang. In spite of himself, Naismith flinched back. The gigantic body swelled, filled the universe… and was gone. The darkness winked out. The gymnasium wall reappeared.

Naismith found himself trembling and covered with sweat.

The far wall darkened again. With a sense of panic, Naismith realized that the experience was beginning once more.

Again the stirring in the darkness, again the red eyes, the emergence: but this time the beast sprang more quickly. The lights came up; after a moment, the darkness fell a third time.

Grimly, Naismith watched the same terrifying bulk appear even more quickly, spring with less delay. A fourth time, and a fifth, he watched, before the lights came on and stayed on: the cycle was over.

And that, he thought bleakly, was probably only the beginning. The beast itself must move incomparably faster than that…

He left the gymnasium and went into the corridor where Churan had found him before. Almost absent-mindedly, he glanced around. His attention sharpened, as he thought again of the anomaly of Churan’s finding him just here. Why not in the gymnasium itself? Why in the corridor outside?

A little farther down the corridor there was an open doorway. Naismith remembered glancing in before, and finding only a small, uninteresting room. He went over to it, looked in again. It was as he recalled it, a tiny green room, hardly larger than a closet.

He stood in the doorway, frowning. There was a small bare desk, the same green as the walls, a simple-looking vision instrument over it, and an array of green and white panels on the wall behind.

The little room might have been a storeroom of some kind: but it was the wrong size. Either it should have been much bigger, Naismith thought, or else there should have been no desk, no vision apparatus. In sudden excitement, he rounded the desk, began to fumble at the control strips of the panels.