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.“What is it?” I said.In spite of Martindale’s words I too had taken a couple of steps closer, and so had Helga.“A portal—a gate to some other part of the universe, built around a gravitational line singularity.” He laughed, and his voice sounded half an octave lower in pitch.“Somebody left it here for us humans, and it leads to the stars.You wanted Trapalanda? This is it—the most priceless discovery in the history of the human race.”He took one more step forward.His moving leg stretched out forever in front of him, lengthening and lengthening.When his foot came down, the leg looked fifty yards long and it dwindled away to the tiny, distant speck of his foot.He lifted his back foot from the ground, and as he leaned forward his whole body rippled and distorted, stretching away from me.Now he looked his usual self—but he was a hundred yards away, carried with one stride along a tunnel that ran as far as the eye could follow.Martindale turned, and reached out his hand.A long arm zoomed back toward us, still attached to that distant body, and a normal-sized right hand appeared out of the aperture.“Come on.” The voice was lower again in tone, and strangely slowed.“Both of you.Don’t you want to see the rest of the universe? Here’s the best chance that you will ever have.”Helga and I took another step forward, staring in to the very edge of the opening.Martindale reached out his left hand too, and it hurtled toward us, growing rapidly, until it was there to be taken and held.I took another step, and I was within the portal itself.I felt normal, but I was aware of that force again, tugging us harder toward the tunnel.Suddenly I was gripped by an irrational and irresistible fear.I had to get away.I turned to move back from the aperture, and found myself looking at Helga.She was thirty yards away, drastically diminished, standing in front of a tiny wall of falling water.One more step would have taken me outside again to safety, clear of the aperture and its persistent, tugging field.But as I was poised to take that step, Helga acted.She closed her eyes and took a long, trembling step forward.I could see her mouth moving, almost as though in prayer.And then the action I could not believe: she leaned forward to grasp convulsively at John Martindale’s outstretched hand.I heard her gasp, and saw her shiver.Then she was taking another step forward.And another.“Helga!” I changed my direction and blundered after her along that endless tunnel.“This way.I’ll get us out.”“No.” She had taken another shivering step, and she was still clutching Martindale’s hand.“No, Klaus.” Her voice was breathless.“He’s right.This is the biggest adventure ever.It’s worth everything.”“Don’t be afraid,” said a hollow, booming voice.It was Martindale, and now all I could see of him was a shimmering silhouette.The man had been replaced by a sparkling outline.“Come on, Klaus.It’s almost here.”The tugging force was stronger, pulling on every cell of my body.I looked at Helga, a shining outline now like John Martindale.They were dwindling, vanishing.They were gone.I wearily turned around and tried to walk back the way we had come.Tons of weight hung on me, wreathed themselves around every limb.I was trying to drag the whole world up an endless hill.I forced my legs to take one small step, then another.It was impossible to see if I was making progress.I was surrounded by that roaring silent pattern of rushing blue lines, all going in the opposite direction from me, every one doing its best to drag me back.I inched along.Finally I could see the white of the waterfall ahead.It was growing in size, but at the same time it was losing definition.My eyes ached.By the time I took the final step and fell on my face on the stone floor of the cave, the waterfall was no more than a milky haze and a sound of rushing water.* * *Owen Davies saved my life, what there is of it.I did my part to help him.I wanted to live when I woke up, and weak as I was, and half-blind, I managed to crawl down that steep rock face.I was dragging myself over the icy boulders when he found me [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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