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"Why?"
"Because I'm drunk, that's why. You're not there at all. That ain't there." He gestured widely at the circle. "There ain't anybody here but me, and I'm drunk. Been working too hard," he added apologetically. "I'm goin' to bed."
"You're not drunk."
"I am drunk. Peter Piper pepped a pick of pippered peckles." He moved toward his bed.
Joe grabbed his arm. "You can't do that," he said.
"Let him alone!"
They both swung around. Facing them, standing directly in front of the circle was a third man. Bob looked at the newcomer, looked back at Joe, blinked his eyes and tried to focus them. The two looked a good bit alike, he thought, enough alike to be brothers. Or maybe he was seeing double. Bad stuff, gin. Should ‘ave switched to rum a long time ago. Good stuff, rum. You could drink it, or take a bath in it. No, that was gin—he meant Joe.
How silly! Joe was the one with the black eye. He wondered why he had ever been confused.
Then who was this other lug? Couldn't a couple of friends have a quiet drink together without people butting in?
"Who are you?" he said with quiet dignity.
The newcomer turned his head, then looked at Joe. "He knows me," he said meaningly.
Joe looked him over slowly. "Yes," he said, "yes, I suppose I do. But what the deuce are you here for? And why are you trying to bust up the plan?"
"No time for long-winded explanations. I know more about it than you do—you'll concede that—and my judgment is bound to be better than yours. He doesn't go through the Gate."
"I don't concede anything of the sort—"
The telephone rang.
"Answer it!" snapped the newcomer.
Bob was about to protest the peremptory tone, but decided he wouldn't. He lacked the phlegmatic temperament necessary to ignore a ringing telephone. "Hello?"
"Hello," he was answered. "Is that Bob Wilson?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
"Never mind. I just wanted to be sure you were there. I thought you would be. You're right in the groove, kid, right in the groove."
Wilson heard a chuckle, then the click of the disco
"What was it?" asked Joe.
"Nothing. Some nut with a misplaced sense of humor." The telephone bell rang again. Wilson added, "There he is again," and picked up the receiver. "Listen, you butterfly-brained ape! I'm a busy man, and this is not a public telephone."
"Why, Bob!" came a hurt feminine voice.
"Huh? Oh, it's you, Genevieve. Look—I'm sorry. I apologize—"
"Well, I should think you would!"
"You don't understand, honey. A guy has been pestering me over the phone and I thought it was him. You know I wouldn't talk that way to you, babe."
"Well, I should think not. Particularly after all you said to me this afternoon, and all we meant to each other"
"Huh? This afternoon? Did you say this afternoon?"
"Of course. But what I called up about was this: you left your hat in my apartment. I noticed it a few minutes after you had gone and just thought I'd call and tell you where it is. Anyhow," she added coyly, "it gave me an excuse to hear your voice again."
"Sure. Fine," he said mechanically. "Look, babe, I'm a little mixed up about this. Trouble I've had all day long, and more trouble now. I'll look you up tonight and straighten it out. But I know I didn't leave your hat in my apartment—"
"Your hat, silly!"
"Huh? Oh, sure! Anyhow, I'll see you tonight. ‘By." He rang off hurriedly. Gosh, he thought, that woman is getting to be a problem. Hallucinations. He turned to his two companions.
"Very well, Joe. I'm ready to go if you are." He was not sure just when or why he had decided to go through the time gadget, but he had. Who did this other mug think he was, anyhow, trying to interfere with a man's freedom of choice?
"Fine!" said Joe, in a relieved voice. "Just step through. That's all there is to it."
"No, you don't!" It was the ubiquitous stranger. He stepped between Wilson and the Gate.
Bob Wilson faced him. "Listen, you! You come butting in here like you think I was a bum. If you don't like it, go jump in the lake—and I'm just the kind of guy who can do it! You and who else?"
The stranger reached out and tried to collar him. Wilson let go a swing, but not a good one. It went by nothing faster than parcel post. The stranger walked under it and let him have a mouthful of knuckles—large, hard ones. Joe closed in rapidly, coming to Bob's aid. They traded punches in a free-for-all, with Bob joining in enthusiastically but inefficiently. The only punch he landed was on Joe, theoretically his ally. However, he had intended it for the third man.
It was this faux pas which gave the stranger an opportunity to land a clean left jab on Wilson's face. It was inches higher than the button, but in Bob's bemused condition it was sufficient to cause him to cease taking part in the activities.
Bob Wilson came slowly to awareness of his surroundings. He was seated on a floor which seemed a little unsteady. Someone was bending over him. "Are you all right?" the figure inquired.
"I guess so," he answered thickly. His mouth pained him; he put his hand to it, got it sticky with blood. "My head hurts."
"I should think it would. You came through head over heels. I think you hit your head when you landed."
Wilson's thoughts were coming back into confused focus. Came through? He looked more closely at his succorer. He saw a middle-aged man with gray-shot bushy hair and a short, neatly trimmed beard. He was dressed in what Wilson took to be purple lounging pajamas.
But the room in which he found himself bothered him even more. It was circular and the ceiling was arched so subtly that it was difficult to say how high it was. A steady glareless light filled the room from no apparent source. There was no furniture save for a high dais or pulpit-shaped object near the wall facing him. "Came through? Came through what?"
"The Gate, of course." There was something odd about the man's accent. Wilson could not place it, save for a feeling that English was not a tongue he was accustomed to speaking.
Wilson looked over his shoulder in the direction of the other's gaze, and saw the circle.
That made his head ache even more. "Oh, Lord," he thought, "now I really am nuts. Why don't I wake up?" He shook his head to clear it.
That was a mistake. The top of his head did not quite come off—not quite. And the circle stayed where it was, a simple locus hanging in the air, its flat depth filled with the amorphous colors and shapes Of no-vision. "Did I come through that?"
"Yes."
"Where am I?"
"In the Hall of the Gate in the High Palace of Norkaal. But what is more important is when you are. You have gone forward a little more than thirty thousand years."
"Now I know I'm crazy," thought Wilson. He got up unsteadily and moved toward the Gate.
The older man put a hand on his shoulder. "Where are you going?"
"Back!"
"Not so fast. You will go back all right—I give you my word on that. But let me dress your wounds first. And you should rest. I have some explanations to make to you, and there is an errand you can do for me when you get back—to our mutual advantage. There is a great future in store for you and me, my boy—a great future!"
Wilson paused uncertainly. The elder man's insistence was vaguely disquieting. "I don't like this."
The other eyed him narrowly. "Wouldn't you like a drink before you go?"
Wilson most assuredly would. Right at the moment a stiff drink seemed the most desirable thing on Earth—or in time. "Okay."
"Come with me." The older man led him back of the structure near the wall and through a door which led into a passageway. He walked briskly; Wilson hurried to keep up.