Damon Knight: Beyond the Barrier

The gun was gone. The Thing was gone. The chair lay smashed and blackened in the middle of the floor.

1. The Zug. [Twice underlined.]

2. Miss Lall. (?)

3. Things burned—Ramsdell, Mrs. Becker, the chair.

4. Churan. (?)

5. Ramsdell’s machine, similar to gun.

6. Why did Churan accuse me, then get me out of jail?

7. Why???

Naismith stared at the list he had written. A pattern was forming in it, but it was maddeningly obscure. He rose from his desk and took a turn around the living room, moving nervously, combing his hair back with an impatient gesture. It was mid-morning: he had finally fallen asleep again toward dawn, and had slept until nearly ten.

He sat down at the desk again, staring at the list with narrowed eyes. The pattern… He drew a light pencil line between Miss Lall’s name and Churan’s. The two of them, evidently connected, similar in origin… one East Indian, the other, by the sound of the name, probably Iranian.… He felt a touch of uneasiness at this thought, but could not identify it, and went on. He remembered now that Miss Lall always sat alone in class; the other East Indian students invariably sat in close, gossiping groups. Did she avoid them because they would know she was not Indian, in spite of her name?

Why did Churan wear actor’s makeup?

Why, why, why…?

The pencil snapped between his fingers. Naismith sat back, deep in thought. He had done the one right thing last night, he knew intuitively, in hurling the chair at the spectral gun.

Immediately afterward he had felt an overpowering sense of relief, almost of reprieve. But why? What would have happened if he had touched the gun?

He thought of the blackened chair, and shuddered. But he knew, somehow, that was not the answer.

He checked off the points on the list again, one by one.

After a moment, hesitantly, he drew a doubtful line between

“Things burned” and “Ramsdell’s machine.”

Now the thought that had come to him last night in the jail cell began to take shape. Ramsdell had died after handing him the machine from Churan. Mrs. Becker had died after moving the machine from the desk to the closet. A common denomin-ator: both had held it in their hands.

Naismith got up and went to the closet. The machine gleamed dully at him from the shelf. Reluctantly, he reached up and pulled it down. It lay heavy and solid in his hands; it was just heavy enough that, to hold it comfortably, an ordinary person would have to keep it at the level of his chest.

That was what Ramsdell and Mrs. Becker must have done.

And they had been burned in the chest, face and arms—that is, in a radius of about a foot and a half from the point where they had held the machine.

If he was right, he had in his hands a thing of frightful power.

And yet he had held the machine, not once but several times, just as he was doing now.

Slowly he put the machine back on the closet shelf. He returned to the desk, leaning over it and staring intently at the list.

The gun—similar in appearance to the first machine, and evidently wielding the same terrible power. He picked up the pencil, drew another line between the gun and the machine.

Then he traced it again, making it heavier. The gun had appeared after he brought the machine into the apartment.

There was one more connection: if he could trace them all, he would have the answer to the mystery.

He frowned at the last items, the questions of motive, then left them and went back to the head of the list.

The Zug. The word had a teeth-grating unpleasantness for him now, remembering the shadowy creature he had seen in his bedroom last night. What was it? He had no more knowledge than before: but he knew in his viscera that it was real.

Miss Lall. There at least was a place to start. It was she who had begun the whole thing, with that abrupt question: “What is a Zug?” Her voice… was it similar to the one that had whispered to him out of emptiness last night? He could not remember: but he felt certain that Miss Lall knew more about what a Zug was than he did.

She had not asked because she wanted to know.

Why then? To start him thinking, to create a state of mind in which other things might happen…? Naismith’s fingers tightened on the broken stub of pencil. Yes, he wanted very much to meet Miss Lall again.

He thought briefly of taking the machine with him to the university laboratories, then dismissed the idea. It was too dangerous; he couldn’t take the chance of injuring any more innocent people. Actually the thing ought to be in a vault by itself somewhere… but barring that, it was as safe here as anywhere. He locked the door carefully behind him.

Youngsters were strolling on the shadowed campus lawns, oblivious as he went past them. Naismith called first at the Registrar’s office. “Dolly,” he said to the brown-haired woman at the desk, “can you tell me something about a freshman named Lall—Samarantha Lall?”

The assistant registrar looked up, startled. “Oh—Professor Naismith.” She hesitated. “But, Professor, aren’t you suspended? Professor Orvile said—” She stopped, embarrassed.

“It was all a terrible mistake, Dolly,” Naismith told her in a confidential tone. “I had nothing to do with Ramsdell’s death. They asked me a few questions and then released me.

You can call up the police and verify that, if you like.”

“Oh, no,” she said, still looking doubtful. “Well, I’m sure it’s all right then. What was the name?”

“Samarantha Lall.”

The woman turned to her files. “Yes, here we are. Just a minute, I’ll give you a stat of her card.” She dropped the oblong of plastic into a copying machine, handed the duplicate to Naismith.

Naismith examined the card. “I see Thurmond has her in freshman English this morning.”

The woman glanced at the wall clock. “Better hurry if you want to catch her there, Professor.- That class is just letting out.”

Naismith thanked her hastily and left. He knew she would notify Orvile and there would be trouble—perhaps an expulsion. But he had no time for that now.

He saw her among a group of students scattering out of the main entrance of the Humanities Building. She stood composed and erect, in a dark blouse of figured silk and a short white skirt, with her books and equipment in her arms, waiting for him while he walked toward her.

Now that he observed her closely, she was an unusual-looking girl. Her skin was a dull tan, without gloss, even her prominent cheekbones. Her hair was black and dull. Her rather heavy features remained expressionless as he approached, but her long, amber eyes regarded him with veiled amusement.

“Yes, Professor?” she said in her thin voice.

“Miss Lall.” He was fighting to control a sudden anger that made his hands tremble.

“Yes?” she repeated.

“What is a Zug?”

They stared at each other for a moment in silence. “So you still don’t remember?” she said. “A Zug—” she pronounced the word with an intonation of hatred and disgust—“is a mutated ortholidan.”

“That means nothing to me.”

“An ortholidan is a monster. Some grow thirty feet long.

They are flesh-eaters, very fierce, and the mutated ones are also very intelligent.”

“What species do they belong to? Where are they found?”

“They belong to no Terrestrial species. As to where they are found—” She hesitated. “I can’t tell you that yet.”

“Why not?”

“You aren’t ready. We thought you were, but we were mistaken.”

“Ready for what? What do you want of me?”

She said slowly, “I’m going to be frank. We want you to kill a Zug. The Zug is in a certain place, very hard to get to. When you are ready, we’ll take you there, then when you have killed it, we will reward you liberally.” She smiled, showing small, separated white teeth.