diving airplanes?"
     That surprised me. He  seemed to know all about them, though he said he
didn't read the papers.
     "I just saw some,"  he said, and again  wiped  his forehead, this  time
from cold  sweat most likely.  The meeting with our  acquaintances  from the
Antarctic seemed to have knocked him out completely.
     "So what?" I asked. "They fly and they dive, do a good job. And they're
like cucumbers. But no harm done. Just a fog, that's all. You're  a bit of a
coward, aren't you?"
     "Anyone would have got scared in my place," he said still all keyed up.
"I nearly went crazy when they doubled my herd."
     And, then looking around, as if afraid someone might be  listening,  he
added softly, "And me too."
     I realized then, Yuri, that  Mitchell  had  gone through the same thing
that  you and I had. These damn  clouds got  interested  in  the herd, dived
down,  doubled it and  this  plucky cowboy  tried  to drive  them  off. Then
something  totally  unexplainable  occurred.  One   of  the  rose  cucumbers
approached  him,  hovered  over  his head and ordered him to retreat. Not in
words, naturally, but like  a hypnotizer-to  go  back  and get on the horse.
Mitchell  told me that he could not do  anything  other than as he was told.
Without offering any resistance, he went back to the horse and got into  the
saddle. What I think is  that they wanted someone on horseback because  they
already had  quite a collection of people on foot. The rest was routine: the
red fog, the complete immobility-you can't move a hand or  a foot and it  is
as  if you were being examined straight  through.  A very familiar  pattern.
When  the fog dispersed and the boy came to he couldn't believe his eyes-the
herd had doubled,  and  to the side,  on a horse, was another Mitchell.  The
horse was the same, and he was the same, as if in a mirror.
     That's when he lost  his nerve; and I remember well the first time that
happened to me too. Well, it was the same thing, he ran, he just  ran to get
away  from  it.  Then  he stopped.  The  cattle weren't  his,  he  would  be
responsible. He thought a bit, and then returned. What he found was what had
been there  before  the  coming  of  the  rose  clouds.  No extra cattle, no
duplicate  horse. So he figured he must have been seeing  things, or he  was
out of his mind. He drove the cattle into the paddock,  and left for town to
see the boss.
     All of  this is by way of introduction, you understand.  I  had  hardly
quieted down the boy when I myself  got  the jitters: there they were flying
at house-top level, single file as if it were along a road. Just like Disney
characters, like our radioman at MacMurdo had suggested, not like cucumbers.
Then Mitchell saw them. Dead silence. He was breathing heavily.
     That's it again, I thought, recalling how those dirigibles  had plunged
into combat  in  our first aerial  fight.  But this time  they did  not even
descend, they simply hurtled by at sonic speed like rose-coloured flashes of
lightning in a lilac sky.
     "They're headed for town," Mitchell whispered from behind.
     I didn't say anything.
     "I wonder why they didn't pay any attention to us."
     "Not interested. Two in a car, any number about like us. And I'm tagged
as it is."
     He didn't get me.
     "We've already met," I explained. "And they remember."
     "I don't like this at all," he said and fell silent.
     And so we drove  on in silence until the town  came into sight. We were
about a mile  away but  for some  reason I didn't recognize it. It seemed so
strange in the lilac haze, like a mirage over distant shifting yellow sands.
     "What  the  hell!" I exclaimed in  surprise. "Maybe my speedometer's on
the blink. It should
     be a good dozen miles yet to town, but there it ,1
     is."
     "Look up over there!" Mitchell shouted.
     Right over the mirage of the town hung a string of rose clouds, sort of
like jellyfish or perhaps umbrellas, or a cross between them. Maybe that's a
mirage too.
     "The town's not in the right place," I said. "I don't get it."
     "We should have passed old man Johnson's motel by  this time," Mitchell
put in. "It's only a mile from town."
     I recalled the shrivelled up face of the motel owner and his stentorian
commanding  voice: "The world's gone  nuts,  Don.  I'm  already beginning to
believe  in  God."  I  seemed  ready  to believe  in God too. I  was  seeing
marvellous unfathomable miracles. Johnson,  who ordinarily sat on his  porch
and greeted all cars passing by, had vanished. That in itself was a miracle.
Never, in all  my  travelling to  town, had I ever missed  old  man  Johnson
waving us into town. A bigger enigma yet was the disappearance of his motel,
for we couldn't have passed it. There weren't even any signs of a  structure
along the road.
     On the other hand, the town was coming into full  sight. Sand City in a
lilac haze ceased to be a mirage.
     "A  town  like  any  other,"  said  Mitchell,  "but  there's  something
different here. Maybe we're on another route."
     But we  were  coming in by the usual route. The same  red-brick houses,
the same sign boards with big letters reading: 'Juiciest Beef Steak in  Sand
City', the  same gas station. Even Fritch in  a white jacket was standing as
usual near the lightning-split oak tree with his broad smile "What can I  do
for you, sir? Oil? Gas?"




        Chapter XIV. WEREWOLF CITY



     I  stopped  the car with a screech of brakes so familiar to gas station
attendants round this place.
     "Howdy, Fritch. What's doing in town?"
     It looked to me like Fritch didn't  recognize me. He approached us  but
kind of  unwillingly, no eagerness, like a person coming into a brightly lit
room from the dark. Still more  striking  were his eyes: fixed, as if  dead,
they looked through us, not at us. He stopped before reaching the car.
     "Good morning, sir," he said indifferently in a dull hollow voice.
     He didn't use my name.
     "What's happening to the city!?" I yelled. "What's it got, wings?"
     "Don't know, sir," the voice was Fritch's but in  a totally indifferent
monotone. "What would you like, sir?"
     No, this wasn't Fritch  at all. "Where's  old man Johnson's motel  gone
to?" I asked impatiently.
     He replied without a smile:
     "Old man Johnson's motel? Don't know, sir." He  took a step closer and,
now with a smile-but such an artificial smile it was that  I  was horrified.
.. Then, "What can I do for you, some oil, or gas?"
     "Okay,"  I said. "We'll figure  this out yet. Let's go, Mitchell." As I
left the  gas station, I turned  around.  Fritch was still standing there on
the roadside, watching us go, his eyes the cold, fixed eyes of a corpse.
     "What's  wrong with him?" asked  Mitchell. "Taken  a bit too  much this
morning?"
     But  I  knew that Fritch did not drink, anyway  nothing more than Pepsi
Cola. This wasn't liquor, it was something inhuman.
     "A puppet," I muttered, "a wound-up puppet.  'Don't know, sir. What can
I do for you, sir?' "
     You know I'm no coward, Yuri, but honestly I cringed from a premonition
of imminent danger. Too  many  unaccountable  accidents, and worse than down
there in Antarctica.  I even wanted to turn around and go  back, but there's
no other route to town. And there was no point in going back to the base.
     "You know where to find the boss?" I asked Mitchell.
     "In the club most likely."
     "Okay, we'll begin with the club," I sighed.
     "Since the town's right here, there's no use stopping now."
     I  turned  down  Eldorado Street  racing  the  car  past  neat  rows of
cottages, all yellow like new-born chicks. There were no pedestrians, nobody
walked-this  was  an upper-crust neighbourhood,  quiet;  the  big  shots had
already left for their offices, and their wives were still stretching in bed
or having late breakfasts in their electrified kitchenettes. Mitchell's boss
was taking  a snack in the club, which was at the cross-roads of Main Street
and State. By this time I was fairly ashamed of my unrealised fears-the blue
sky, no rose  clouds over head, the heated-up asphalt, the hot wind sweeping
bits of newspaper which  might even be carrying the rose-cloud sensation and
stating that it was the concoction of New  York  nuts. Sand  City  was fully
protected from any cosmic intruder. Everything returned us to the reality of
quiet town, the way it should be on a sultry summer morning like today.
     At least  that  is the  way  it seemed to me,  because it  was  all  an
illusion, Yuri. There was no morning in the town and it wasn't slumbering or
sleeping. We could see that at once when we turned down State Street.
     "Isn't it too early for the club?" I asked  Mitchell  still thinking by
inertia about the sleeping city.
     He  laughed-there was a crowd  at the intersection that had stopped all
traffic.  This  was no morning crowd and this was no waking-up city. The sun
shone  but  the  electric  street lights were just  as bright, as if it were
still  last  night.  Neon  lights  were still  flashing  on  and off  in the
show-windows  and on signs.  In  movie houses, cowboys were  shooting, James
Bond  was  fearlessly on the job seeking out victims to  eliminate. Billiard
balls were racing noiselessly over green tables, and the  jazz band over  at
the "Selena" Restaurant was banging away as loud as  a passing train. And on
the sidewalks, pedestrians  were walking lazily along, not hurrying to work,
because work had long since  ceased,  the city was alive with  evening life,
not  morning  duties. As if the people  together with the electric  lighting
were out to fool time and nature.
     "Why the lights? Isn't the sun enough?" Mitchell said in bewilderment.
     I pulled up at  the curb near the tobacco store. Tossing some change on
the counter I carefully asked the pretty sales girl:
     "What's it a holiday today?"
     "What holiday?"  she asked by way of reply, handing  me the cigarettes.
"An ordinary evening of a usual day?"
     The immobile blue eyes looked through me-like the dead eyes of Fritch.
     "Evening?" I repeated.  "Take a  look at the sky. What's the sun  doing
there if it's evening?"
     "Don't know." Her voice was calm and indifferent. "It's evening now and
I don't know anything."
     I slowly left  the shop. Mitchell  was waiting in the car. He had heard
the whole conversation and was probably thinking the same thoughts as I was:
who's crazy,  we  or everyone  in town? Maybe  it  really  was  evening  and
Mitchell and I were seeing things. I took another close look at the  street.
It  was part of Route  66 that passed through to New  Mexico. The cars  were
passing two lanes abreast in both directions. Ordinary United States cars on
an ordinary American highway. All of them had their headlights on.
     On an impulse, I grabbed the first passer-by.
     "Hey, take your hands off me," he exploded.
     He was a  little, thick-set but nimble man in a crazy-like bicycle cap.
His eyes were not empty and indifferent, but alive and angry. They looked at
me with revulsion.  I turned around and looked at Mitchell who mimicked that
the fat guy must  be  touched in the head.  And  the anger of  the roly-poly
stranger switched to a different direction.
     "You  say  I'm  crazy,  do you!"  he  screamed and lunged for Mitchell.
"You're  the ones that are mad,  the whole  town's gone nuts. Electricity in
the  morning, and the only answer I get  to all questions is 'I don't know'.
All right, what is it: morning or night?"
     "Morning,  of  course,"  said  Mitchell, "but something's wrong here in
town this morning, I just don't understand."
     The metamorphosis of the fat man was amazing. He  no longer screamed or
yelled,  only quietly smiled stroking Mitchell's sweaty hand. Even his  eyes
moistened.
     "Thank heavens, one  normal man in  this nut house of a  town," he said
finally still holding on to Mitchell's hand.
     "Two," I said  extending my own hand. "You're the third. Let's exchange
impressions. We might be able to figure out this number."
     We stopped  on the edge  of the curb separated  from the  highway  by a
colourful string of parked cars, nobody inside.
     "Gentlemen, explain this  to me," he  began,  "these tricks  with cars.
They ride along, disappear, vanish, into nowhere."
     To put it honestly, I didn't get what he was driving at. What  was this
"into nowhere". He explained. Only he needed a  smoke to calm down. "I don't
usually smoke, but you know it does have a calming effect."
     "My  name's  Lesley  Baker,   travelling   salesman.  Women's  apparel,
cosmetics. Always on the go, here one day, gone the  next. I arrived on  the
route  from  New Mexico, turned onto Route 66.  I was crawling along awfully
slow, like a  snail. There  was this big green van right in front,  couldn't
pass it for the life of  me. You  know how it is, going slow. A  toothache's
worse. Then this sign 'You are now entering the quietest city in the  United
States'.  Quietest, my eye, the craziest, that's more  like it. At  the city
limits, where the highway widens out-there are no sidewalks-I tried again to
get out ahead of this big van. I just  stepped on  the gas, and it vanished,
went up into nothing.  I  was flabbergasted. So  I put on the brakes, pulled
over to the side and looked here and there, no van. Evaporated like sugar in
a  cup  of coffee. I even ran  into a  barbed-wire fence, lucky I was  going
slow."
     "Why a barbed-wire fence along the road?" I asked surprised.
     "On the highway? There wasn't any highway.  It had gone  along with the
van.  All  there was a red open  space, a green  island-like something at  a
distance, and the fence and barbed wire all about. Somebody's farm, I guess.
You  don't  believe  me? Well, I  didn't myself.  The  hell with  the van, I
figured, but  where did the road  go  to? I must have  been off my rocker. I
turned  around  and  nearly died  then  and  there-a huge black  Lincoln was
heading for me right through the wire! It was doing at least a hundred miles
an hour. I  didn't even have  time to jump, I just closed my eyes. This  was
the end for sure. A minute passed, no end. I opened my eyes, no end, no car,
no nothing."
     "Maybe it passed by."
     "Where? How? On what road?"
     "So the road disappeared too?"
     He nodded.
     "So," I said, "the cars disappeared before reaching the barbed wire?"
     "That's just  it. One after the other. I stood  there some  ten minutes
and they kept on  disappearing at the edge  of the highway.  It broke off in
red clay at the  very edge of the wire. There  I stood  like Rip Van Winkle,
blinking my eyes. To all  questions, only one answer: 'Don't know.' Why  are
the cars driving with headlights on? Don't know. Where are they disappearing
to? Don't  know. Maybe  going to hell? Don't know. Where's the  highway? The
eyes are glassy like those of the dead."
     It was already clear to me what kind of city this was. All I wanted was
one  more test: to take a look with my own eyes. I looked around  and raised
my hand: one of  the cars  stopped. The driver had  glassy eyes  too. But  I
risked it.
     "I'm going to the city limits. Two blocks or so, that's all."
     "Hop in," he said indifferently.
     I got in beside him. The fat guy and Mitchell got in  behind, not quite
understanding  what  it was  all about. The  driver  turned his  head  away,
completely apathetic, stepped on the gas, and covered the two blocks in half
a minute.
     "Look," Baker from behind whispered in agitation.
     In front of us, right across the highway cut  off by the red clay  were
four rows of rusty barbed wire. One could  only  see a small portion of  the
wire  fencework, the rest was hidden  behind the houses on the roadside, and
so it seemed as if the whole city were fenced in and isolated from the world
of living human beings. I already had some idea  of this thing  from Baker's
story, but the reality was still crazier.
     "Watch  out for  the  wire," Baker  yelled grabbing at the arm  of  the
driver.
     "Where?"  was  the surprised reply and he  pushed  away  Baker's  hand.
"You're nuts."
     He obviously didn't see the wire.
     "Put on the brakes," I said, "we're getting out here."
     The driver slowed down, but I could already  see the radiator beginning
to melt  in  the air. It was  as if something invisible  were eating the car
away  inch by inch.  The windshield had gone, then the instrument panel, the
driving wheel,  the hands of the driver. This was ghastly-so terrifying that
I instinctively closed my eyes. Then a sharp blow knocked me to  the ground.
I pitched into the dust and rolled along on the asphalt roadway, which means
I was flung out at the very edge of the highway. But how did  I fly out? The
door of the car was shut, the car hadn't overturned or anything. I raised my
head and in front I saw the body of an unfamiliar grey car. Alongside in the
dust lay unconscious our friend the salesman.
     "Are you alive?"  asked  Mitchell  bending down to him.  He had a black
eye. "I was knocked right  against Baker's bus." He  nodded towards the grey
car stuck in the wire roadblock.
     "Where's ours?"
     He shrugged his shoulders. For a minute  or two we  stood silent at the
edge of the cut-off highway watching one and the same miracle that  had just
left us without a car. The  fat travelling salesman had also got to his feet
and had joined  our spectacle.  It was repeated every three seconds  when-at
full speed-a  car  crossed the  edge of  the highway. Fords and Pontiacs and
Buicks-all  kinds drove  in and vanished without a trace, like soap bubbles.
Some  of the cars  were heading right into us as  we stood there, but we did
not move because  they simply evaporated two feet in front of us. The entire
process of mysterious and inexplicable vanishings  was clearly visible right
here in the  hot  sunshine.  True enough, they did not vanish  suddenly  but
gradually, by diving,  as  it were,  into  some kind of a hole in  space and
disappearing there, beginning with the  front bumper and winding up with the
back  license  plate.  The  whole  city  seemed  to  be  fenced  round  with
transparent  glass, beyond which there was  no highway,  no cars, no city at
all.
     Probably one  and  the  same thought rankled all three of us:  What was
there to do? Return to town?  But what kind of marvels might not be awaiting
us there, some kind of weird circus perhaps? What kind of people would there
be, who would be able to speak a normal human word? So far we hadn't  met up
with a single normal person except the travelling salesman.  I suspected the
doings  of  the  rose  clouds,  but  people  hereabouts were  not  like  the
duplicates created  at the South Pole. Those  were, or  seemed  to be, human
beings, while these  resembled resurrected dead  who knew  nothing  but  the
desire to go somewhere, to drive  cars, knock billiard balls about and drink
whiskey. I recalled Thompson's version and now for the  first time got  real
scared. Had they indeed been able to  replace the entire  population  of the
city? Could it be.... No, there was still one more test to make. Only one.
     "Let's get back to town, boys,"  I said to my companions. "We've got to
rinse out heads in a big way or else the nut house is the only place for us.
Judging by the cigarettes, the whiskey here is real."
     But I was thinking about Mary.




        Chapter XV. PURSUIT



     At about noon we  arrived at the bar where Mary worked. The show window
and  the neon signs were ablaze with light.  The  owners were not  trying to
save on electricity even at high noon. My white duck jumper  was wet through
and  through  with sweat,  but  it was  cool and empty in  the bar. The high
stools were vacant; there were only a few couples near the window whispering
and a  half-drunk old man in  the corner  nursing his  bottle of  brandy and
orange juice.
     Mary did not hear us enter. She was standing with her back to us at the
open counter and was putting bottles on the shelves. We climbed  onto  three
stools  and exchanged expressive glances  without a word. Mitchell was  just
about to call Mary, but I stopped him and signalled for silence. I was going
to do the test myself.
     This was indeed the hardest experiment of all in this insane city.
     "Mary," I called hardly audibly.
     She swung around  as  if  frightened  by the  sound  of  my voice.  Her
squinting short-sighted eyes without glasses  and the  bright light blinding
her  from the ceiling  might have  explained  her well-mannered indifference
towards us. She did not recognize me.
     But she  wore her hairdo the way I liked  it- rather plain without  any
movie-star  effects. And  she  had on a red dress with short  sleeves that I
always preferred. All this  could account  for something else as  well.  She
knew about my visit and was expecting me.  That was a relief, for a minute I
forgot about any doubts and fears.
     "Mary," I said louder.
     The  answer  was  a  coquettish  smile,  with  head tipped to one side,
symbolically stressing the trained readiness to serve her customer, but that
typified  any girl at the bar, not  Mary.  With the boys  she knew, she  was
different.
     "What's the matter, baby?" I asked. "I'm Don!"
     "What's the  difference,  Don  or  John?" she responded with a  playful
shrug  of the  shoulders  and  a  glance with  meaning,  but she  failed  to
recognize me. "Anything I can do for you?"
     "Hey, look at me, will you?" I said rudely.
     "What for?" came her surprised respond, but she looked.
     I saw two huge bulging eyes-not hers-blue  and narrow like the girls in
pictures by Salvador Dali, and always lively, kind or angry. There  were the
cold dead  eyes of Fritch,  the eyes of  the girl in the tobacco  store, the
eyes of the  driver that  evaporated on the highway with his car-the  glassy
eyes of a doll. A puppet. Not  alive,  that was it. The test was a  failure.
There weren't any live people in  that city. Then the instantaneous decision
to  run. Anywhere, just to get  out of it all before it was too late, before
all this damned horror invaded us completely.
     "Follow me!" I shouted, jumping off the stool.
     The fat man was disappointed expecting the promised drink, but Mitchell
got  the message. A bright kid. When we were out in the street he said, "How
will I find the boss now?"
     "You won't  find your boss anywhere  here," I said.  "There aren't  any
people here, just make believe, half-people. Let's beat it."
     The  fat  man couldn't  get  anything through his head,  but obediently
followed behind from fear; he obviously didn't relish staying alone  in this
weird city.  I'm afraid that even  Mitchell wasn't fully  aware  of what was
going on, but at least  he  didn't  argue. He had seen enough bizarre events
along the road today, It was enough for him!
     "If we have to clear out, then we  will,"  he remarked philosophically.
"Do you remember where we left the car?"
     I looked around, my "corvette"  wasn't on the corner. I  must have left
it farther down the street. In  its place  near the curb, about two or three
yards from us was a black police car, headlights ablaze. There were a couple
of policemen in uniform inside, and two more-one with a broken nose, must've
been  a former boxer- stood next to the open door. On the other side of  the
street, near a sign that read "Commercial Bank" were two more. They were all
following  us with intent but hardly  alive, penetrating eyes. I didn't like
that at all.
     The sergeant said something to those in the car. The  concentrated look
on his face was ominous. They were definitely waiting for someone. Maybe us,
shot through my mind. Anything could happen in this upside-down city.
     "Hurry up, Mitch," I said looking around, "we seem to be in for it."
     "Over that way," he replied and ran, weaving through the cars parked at
the curb.
     I slipped around a truck that nearly  hit me and  got to the other side
of  the  street some distance away from  the suspicious black wagon. Just in
time, too. The sergeant stepped out onto the pavement and raised his hand.
     "Hey, you, stop!"
     But I had already  swung into the side street, a dark canyon-like alley
between houses without signs or  windows. The fat guy dashed with surprising
agility and caught up with me, grabbed my hand:
     "Look what they're doing!"
     I turned  around. The policemen had strung  out  and were crossing  the
street on the run. In front was  the sergeant breathing heavily and reaching
for his gun. Noticing me turn around, he shouted:
     "Stop or I'll shoot!"
     I didn't want to  see  how his gun worked, particularly here when I had
figured out the origin of this town and its population. I was lucky-I  heard
the whistle of bullets after  I had jumped behind an empty car.  The closely
parked  chain of cars  made  it easier for  us  to manoeuvre.  With  amazing
nimbleness spurred  on by  fear, Baker  and Mitchell  dived, crouching,  and
raced across the street.
     I  knew  this  side-street. Somewhere along here  there  should  be two
houses  with an arched gateway between them. There you  could get through to
the next  street and catch a passing car or End one: maybe our own. We  left
it somewhere nearby on the corner of just such  a  narrow side-street. Or we
might hide in the repair  shop.  A  week before when Mary and I were walking
past, the shop was empty  and there was a "To Let" sign up. I remembered the
shop when  we went  under the arched  gateway. The policemen were stuck some
distance behind.
     "This way!" I shouted to my companions and pulled on the door.
     The padlock and  sign were still hanging there and  my jerk didn't open
the door. Then I rammed it with my shoulder, it creaked but held.
     Then Mitchell tried with his whole body. The door groaned and collapsed
in a jangle of falling metal.
     But there wasn't anything behind it, it didn't lead anywhere. We  faced
a dark opening  filled with  a thick black jelly-like something. At first we
thought it was simply the  darkness of an  unlighted entrance way out of the
sunlight in  this narrow  alley.  I  pushed forward into the  darkness,  but
jumped back again: it turned out  to be elastic like rubber. Now I could see
it perfectly well-a definitely  black  something, perceptible to  the touch,
but  awfully dense and  resilient,  blown  up  like an  automobile  tire  or
compressed smoke.
     Then  Mitchell  plunged into it, he  jumped into the  darkness  like  a
wildcat and rebounded like I  had. Actually, it-the something-just threw him
back. It was most likely impenetrable even to a cannon ball. I figured-I was
convinced of this-that the whole inside of the house was the same: no rooms,
no people, darkness pure and simple with the resilience of a net.
     "What is it?" Mitchell asked horrified.
     He was scared stiff like in  the  morning on the highway. But there was
no more time to analyse impressions.  Our pursuers were getting closer. They
had probably entered the archway. But between us and the dense springy black
substance was a narrow-about  a foot  wide-space of ordinary darkness, maybe
of the same kind  but  sort of rarefied to the constituency of fog or gas. A
London smog or pea soup where you don't see more than a yard away. I put out
my hand, it disappeared in  it as if cut off. I  got  up and pressed against
the  compressed darkness in the depth of  the doorway  and  heard Baker yell
out, "Where are you guys?"
     Mitchell's hand found me and he saw at once how to get out. Together we
pulled the fat travelling salesman  through the opening and tried  to vanish
into the  darkness by pressing as hard  as possible so that the  treacherous
resilient thing beyond did not throw us out again.
     The door to the  repair shop where we were hiding was round the  corner
of  a  brick wall that jutted out at  this point. The  policemen had already
looked down the side street but could  not see us, yet even an  idiot  could
have guessed we couldn't have been able to  run the length of the street and
hide.
     "They're  some place around here," the sergeant said.  The wind carried
his words. "Try it along the wall."
     Bursts of machine-gun fire followed  one after  the other. The  bullets
did not  touch us hidden behind the jutting  portion of  the wall,  but they
whistled by and crunched into  the brick knocking out bits of  the wall. The
three of us were breathing heavily, tense with nerves at the bursting point.
I was afraid the salesman might give up,  so I held him by the throat. If he
squeaks, I thought, I'll  have to press harder. By then  shots  were ringing
out  from the other side of the street, the police were firing down entrance
ways and into indentations. I know that type and whispered to Mitchell:
     "Give me your pistol!"
     I wouldn't have done it in a reasonable city with normal policemen even
in  a similar situation, but in this backside-to town all means would do. So
I  didn't  tremble  when  I reached  in  the  dark for Mitchell's plaything.
Cautiously, I looked round the jutting wall and slowly raised the gun till I
had the big mug of  the sergeant in the sight,  then  I pressed the trigger.
There was a sharp  report and I could  clearly see the head of the policeman
jerk from the impact  of the bullet. It even  seemed to me that I saw a neat
round  hole at the bridge of the nose.  But  the  sergeant did  not fall, he
didn't even reel.
     "I've  got'em," he cried out enthusiastically.  "They're hiding  around
the corner."
     "How'd you miss him?" said Mitchell down-heartedly.
     I did  not answer.  I was positive  I'd got the policeman square in the
forehead.  I simply couldn't  have missed.  I've  shot and  won prizes. This
could  only  mean  that  these puppets  were not  afraid  of bullets.  I was
trembling all  over now so I  didn't even aim, I  just pumped the whole clip
into the  big-cheeked sergeant. I  could almost physically feel the  bullets
plump into the body.
     Nothing  happened.  He didn't even  feel  them,  didn't  jerk or try to
escape. Could it be that, inside, he was all that rubber that we were hiding
close to now?
     I threw down the useless pistol and left the hiding  place. Now nothing
mattered any more, there could be only one end.
     At  that moment something happened, not exactly sudden, I wouldn't say.
Something had been changing in the  situation all  along, simply in the heat
of the fight we  hadn't  noticed  properly. The  air about was going redder,
little by  little,  then deep crimson. I drove the last clip of bullets into
the  sergeant  without   being  able  to  see  him  properly  in  his  murky
surroundings.  And  when  the  pistol fell  to  the  ground, I looked at  it
automatically, but it wasn't there: under my feet was a thick crimson jelly.
A fog of  the same colour had enveloped everything. Only  the figures of the
policemen stood  dimly  at  a  distance  like  purple shadows.  The fog  was
thickening all the  time, finally it got as dense jam. But it did not hamper
our breathing or movements in the least.
     I don't know how long this lasted, a  minute, half an  hour or an hour,
but all of a sudden it had rapidly and unnoticeably melted away. When it was
over, a totally different  picture opened up to us. There were no policemen,
no houses, no streets, only the brick-like sun-baked desert and the sky with
ordinary  clouds  scudding along high up. Off  in the  distance was the hazy
dark  ribbon of  the highway, and in  front of  us, all entangled  in barbed
wire, was the upturned car of our fat travelling salesman.
     "What was it all about? Was it a dream?" he asked.
     His voice was so excited it came out hoarse, he could hardly speak, his
tongue wouldn't obey, like people who are regaining the capacity to speak.
     "No," and I patted him on the shoulder for encouragement. "I don't want
to console you. This was no dream but complete reality. And we are the  only
participants."
     Here I was mistaken. There was  yet  another  witness  who had  watched
events from the sidelines, so to speak. We found him a bit later. It took us
about a quarter of an  hour to get to a motel, an ancient structure but with
a nice new shiny concrete-glass-aluminium garage. And Johnson, as usual, was
sitting on the  steps of his porch. He jumped  up when he saw us  and seemed
unnaturally happy.
     "Don?" he said not quite convinced. "Where you from?"
     "From the inside of hell," I said. "From the branch office, it has here
on the earth."
     "You been in  this crazy house?"  He looked  at us  with  horror in his
eyes.
     "Yes,  I was  there all right,"  I assured him.  "I'll  give  the whole
story, only give me a drink  of something, that is,  if you yourself  are no
mirage."
     No, he wasn't. The iced whiskey wasn't either. It was a great relief to
sit down and hear what it was like from the outside of this city.
     Johnson saw it  all very  suddenly. He was sitting, dozing  and all  at
once he came to, looked around and  froze stiff: to the left where there had
never been anything, except dried up clay, was a twin city. To the right was
Sand  City and to the left was Sand City. "I  thought this was the  end, the
end  of the world!  I was not drunk, could see  straight, no doubling  up. I
went  into the house,  then came back again, but  the same  thing: me in the
middle of two twin cities, was  it a mirage? After all, it might be, this is
a desert, you know. Well, the twin city was here all right, never evaporated
and didn't melt. And worse, there wasn't a single car on the highway.
     Then all of a  sudden, it got dark and hazy, a fog  or something like a
fog, smoke or something, or like a storm cloud grazing the ground, an orange
red." As I listened to  Johnson's  story, I noticed that every  witness gave
the colours  a little differently. The fog was purple, or cherry, or crimson
or red.  But whatever it was, it lifted finally and then here we were coming
along the road.
     Later still,  Mary  had her  own  story of the fog. She had really been
waiting for me, and  the dress she had on was just like that  of the phantom
girl in the  fog.  She  also told us what had happened  in the city. I won't
relate it, since I'm sending along  a couple  of newspaper clippings. You'll
figure it all out better than I can."
     I  put down the  last page of  the  letter and  waited  until Irene had
finished reading. We looked at each  other and failed to find words. We were
probably  both  thinking  the  same  thing: is  it  really possible that our
everyday earthly life can get so close to a fairy tale?




        Chapter XVI. MOSCOW TO PARIS



     The clipping Martin sent from the Sand City Tribune read:
     "A curious meteorological phenomenon occurred yesterday in our city. At
half past seven yesterday evening, when the bars and stores and movie houses
all along  State  Street were  lighted  up brightly, a strange  reddish  fog
descended on the city. Some say the colour was violet. Actually, this was no
ordinary  fog  because  visibility  over  considerable  distances   was  not
impaired, all things were clearly discernible like on a  summer morning of a
cloudless day. True,  the fog did thicken to  the consistency of an ordinary
Los  Angeles smog.  They say it's worse  than the  London fog. No one  knows
exactly  how  long it thickened. Probably  not for long because most  of the
witnesses we questioned claim that the fog remained transparent all the time
and that  it was only the environment-houses, people and  even  the air-that
took on a deep purple or almost crimson  hue, as if one were looking through
red glasses. At first, the people stopped, looked at the sky and since there
was  nothing to be seen,  calmly  continued on  their way.  The  fog did not
affect  amusement shows, movies and the  like because it wasn't even noticed
there.  The event persisted for about an hour and then the fog, if  you  can
call it a fog, dispersed and the city became its evening self again.
     "Meteorologist James Backley,  who comes from Sand City and is visiting
here at  present,  explained  that  this  phenomenon  cannot  be  classed as
meteorological. He described  it  rather  as an enormous  rarefied  cloud of
minute particles of an artificial dye dispersed in the air, probably brought
in by the wind from some  dye works within an area of 100-150 miles  radius.
Such a  highly  atomized  and  nondispersible  accumulation  of  minute  dye
particles is a rare event indeed, but not exceptional and  may be carried  *
by the wind for many miles.
     "The  editors  believe that  the  rumours started about  some  kind  of
rose-coloured clouds are completely  groundless. The rose  clouds are  to be
sought in polar and not subtropical  regions of  the continent.  As for  the
statement made by Mr. Johnson, the owner of a  motel on the federal highway,
that he saw two identical cities on either side of his motel, it comes as no
surprise to the  editors  or  to people acquainted  with  Mr.  Johnson.  The
tourist season has not yet started and the motel is empty most of  the time.
It seems obvious  that  a drink or  two of whiskey produced these two cities
that eventful day.
     "Quite another explanation of these events comes  from our sharpshooter
Lammy  Cochen,  owner of the 'Orion'  bar and leader  of the 'Wild' Club. He
says  it's the work of the Reds.  'Look out for the Reds, for  they not only
colour politics, but even the air we breathe.' Doesn't that link up with New
York  lawyer Roy Desmond being beaten up  as he  emerged  from  a bar in our
city?  He  refused  to  answer  certain  questions  relating  to  the coming
presidential  elections.  There  might  be  some  connection. The police who
immediately came to the site  of the disturbance were unable to identify any
of the participants."
     Admiral Thompson gave an interview to  the "Time  and People" magazine:
'PLAGUE GRIPS SAND CITY, SAYS ADMIRAL, ROSE CLOUDS TO BLAME.'
     "During the past few days, a little  southern town on Route 66 has been
the focus of attention of the whole country. Papers have already * published
reports of the red fog that so suddenly enveloped  the city and the story of
the  travelling  salesman Lesley Baker about the bizarre events  in the twin
city. Our  reporter interviewed retired  Admiral Thompson, a  member of  the
United States  Antarctic  expedition and the  first eye  witness of the rose
clouds in action."
     "What do you think about the events in Sand City, sir?"
     "Well, I believe that it is  the  deep concern of  the ordinary citizen
about the future of human society."
     "You believe that there are grounds for concern?"
     "Yes, I do. The 'clouds' are not confining themselves to the copying of
individuals, but  they are synthesizing whole strata of society. I will give
only the  latest  cases:  the  ocean  liner  'Alamade'  with  its  crew  and
passengers in toto, the big store in Buffalo on a particularly busy day, the
plastics works in Evansville. It cannot be that  all witnesses had the  same
dream  as  if they  had lived  together for years,  and then  the  duplicate
factory  that  vanished.  No one  can convince  me  that it was all merely a
mirage caused by a  temperature gradient in different layers of air. And  it
is not  of the slightest importance that it  persisted for only minutes. The
important thing is that nobody can convincingly demonstrate which one of the
factories disappeared and which remained!"
     "When speaking  of the  events in Sand  City at  the Apollo  Club,  you
mentioned the plague. Now in what sense was that?"
     "Oh,  the  most  direct.  The  city  must  be  isolated,  subjected  to
systematic tests and unabated observations in the future. The problem is the
same:  are these  real people  or are they  all  duplicates?  Unfortunately,
neither the authorities nor society  at  large are paying anywhere near  the
necessary attention to this problem."
     "You  couldn't  be exaggerating a bit, could you,  sir?"  our  reporter
objected. "Do you really  accuse  the  country of indifference to the cosmic
visitors?"
     The Admiral replied with irony:
     "Well, not if one speaks of rose-cloud skirts and horsemen-from-nowhere
hairdos. Or, say, the congress of spiritualists that  declared the clouds to
be the spirits of the dead returning to the world with a gift from  almighty
God. That's not indifference! Or take the twelve-hour filibustering speeches
of senators about the  'horsemen' in Congress so as to kill a bill on taxing
big  incomes.  Or  stock brokers using the