Viewpoint, Page 2

theclouds if there had been any clouds.

  Broom backed away from the window and let the curtain close. He'd hadall of that he could take for right now. The inside of the building, hisimmediate surroundings, looked almost homey after seeing that monstrous,endless city outside.

  He skirted the table with its still-humming machine and walked towardthe door that led to the other room. A picture hanging on a nearby wallcaught his eye, and he stopped. It was a portrait of a man inunfamiliar, outlandish clothing, but Broom had seen odder clothing inhis travels. But the thing that had stopped him was the amazing realityof the picture. It was almost as if there were a mirror there,reflecting the face of a man who stood invisibly before it.

  It wasn't, of course; it was only a painting. But the lifelike, sombereyes of the man were focused directly on him. Broom decided he didn'tlike the effect at all, and hurried into the next room.

  There were several rows of the bulky tables in here, each with its ownchair. Broom's footsteps sounded loud in the room, the echoes reboundingfrom the walls. He stopped and looked down. This floor wasn't coveredwith the soft carpeting; it had a square, mosaic pattern, as though itmight be composed of tile of some kind. And yet, though it was harderthan the carpet it had a kind of queer resiliency of its own.

  The room itself was larger than the one he had just quitted, and not aswell lit. For the first time, he thought of the possibility that theremight be someone else here besides himself. He looked around, wishingthat he had a weapon of some kind. Even a knife would have made him feelbetter.

  But there had been no chance of that, of course. Prisoners of war arehardly allowed to carry weapons with them, so none had been available.

  He wondered what sort of men lived in this fantastic city. So far, hehad seen no one. The streets below had been filled with moving vehiclesof some kind, but it had been difficult to tell whether there had beenanyone walking down there from this height.

  Contarini had said that it would be ... how had he said it? "Likesleeping for hundreds of years and waking up in a strange world."

  Well, it was that, all right.

  Did anyone know he was here? He had the uneasy feeling that hidden,unseen eyes were watching his every move, and yet he could detectnothing. There was no sound except the faint humming from the device inthe room behind him, and a deeper, almost inaudible, rushing, rumblingsound that seemed to come from far below.

  His wish for a weapon came back, stronger than before. The very factthat he had seen no one set his nerves on edge even more than the sightof a known enemy would have done.

  He was suddenly no longer interested in his surroundings. He felttrapped in this strange, silent room. He could see a light shiningthrough a door at the far end of the room--perhaps it was a way out. Hewalked toward it, trying to keep his footsteps as silent as possible ashe moved.

  The door had a pane of translucent glass in it, and there were more ofthe unreadable characters on it. He wished fervently that he coulddecipher them; they might tell him where he was.

  Carefully, he grasped the handle of the door, twisted it, and pulled.And, careful as he had been, the door swung inward with surprisingrapidity. It was a great deal thinner and lighter than he had supposed.

  He looked down at it, wondering if there were any way the door could belocked. There was a tiny vertical slit set in a small metal panel in thedoor, but it was much too tiny to be a keyhole. Still--

  It didn't matter. If necessary, he could smash the glass to get throughthe door. He stepped out into what was obviously a hallway beyond thedoor.

  * * * * *

  The hallway stretched away to either side, lined with doors similar tothe one he had just come through. How did a man get out of this place,anyway? The door behind him was pressing against his hand with a patientinsistence, as though it wanted to close itself. He almost let it close,but, at the last second, he changed his mind.

  _Better the devil we know than the devil we don't_, he thought tohimself.

  He went back into the office and looked around for something to prop thedoor open. He found a small, beautifully formed porcelain dish on one ofthe desks, picked it up, and went back to the door. The dish held thedoor open an inch or so. That was good enough. If someone locked thedoor, he could still smash in the glass if he wanted to, but the absenceof the dish when he returned would tell him that he was not alone inthis mysterious place.

  He started down the hallway to his right, checking the doors as he went.They were all locked. He knew that he could break into any of them, buthe had a feeling that he would find no exit through any of them. Theyall looked as though they concealed more of the big rooms.

  None of them had any lights behind them. Only the one door that he hadcome through showed the telltale glow from the other side. Why?

  He had the terrible feeling that he had been drawn across time to thisplace for a purpose, and yet he could think of no rational reason forbelieving so.

  He stopped as another memory came back. He remembered being in thestone-walled dungeon, with its smelly straw beds, lit only by the faintshaft of sunlight that came from the barred window high overhead.

  Contarini, the short, wiry little Italian who was in the next cell,looked at him through the narrow opening. "I still think it can be done,my friend. It is the mind and the mind alone that sees the flow of time.The body experiences, but does not see. Only the soul is capable ofknowing eternity."

  Broom outranked the little Italian, but prison can make brothers of allmen. "You think it's possible then, to get out of a place like this,simply by thinking about it?"

  Contarini nodded. "Why not? Did not the saints do so? And what was that?Contemplation of the Eternal, my comrade; contemplation of the Eternal."

  Broom held back a grin. "Then why, my Venetian friend, have you not leftthis place long since?"

  "I try," Contarini had said simply, "but I cannot do it. You wish toknow why? It is because I am afraid."

  "Afraid?" Broom raised an eyebrow. He had seen Contarini on thebattlefield, dealing death in hand-to-hand combat, and the Italianhadn't impressed him as a coward.

  "Yes," said the Venetian. "Afraid. Oh, I am not afraid of men. I fight.Some day, I may die--_will_ die. This does not frighten me, death. I amnot afraid of what men may do to me." He stopped and frowned. "But, ofthis, I have a great fear. Only a saint can handle such things, and I amno saint."

  "I hope, my dear Contarini," Broom said dryly, "that you are not underthe impression that _I_ am a saint."

  "No, perhaps not," Contarini said. "Perhaps not. But you are braver thanI. I am not afraid of any man living. But you are afraid of neither theliving nor the dead, nor of man nor devil--which is a great deal morethan I can say for myself. Besides, there is the blood of kings in yourveins. And has not a king protection that even a man of noble blood suchas myself does not have? I think so.

  "Oh, I have no doubt that you could do it, if you but would. And then,perhaps, when you are free, you would free me--for teaching you all Iknow to accomplish this. My fear holds me chained here, but you have nochains of fear."

  Broom had thought that over for a moment, then grinned. "All right, myfriend; I'll try it. What's your first lesson?"

  The memory faded from Broom's mind. Had he really moved through somesegment of Eternity to reach this ... this place? Had he--

  He felt a chill run through him. What was he doing here? How could hehave taken it all so calmly. Afraid of man or devil, no--but this wasneither. He had to get back. The utter alienness of this bright,shining, lifeless wonderland was too much for him.

  Instinctively, he turned and ran back toward the room he had left. If hegot back to the place where he had appeared in this world,perhaps--somehow--some force would return him to where he belonged.

  * * * * *

  The door was as he had left it, the porcelain dish still in place. Hescooped up the dish in one big hand and ran on into the room, lettingthe door shut itse
lf behind him. He ran on, through the large room withits many tables, into the brightly lighted room beyond.

  He stopped. What could he do now? He tried to remember the things thatthe Italian had told him to do, and he could not for the life of himremember them. His memory still had gaps in it--gaps he did not knowwere there because he had not yet probed for them. He closed his eyes inconcentration, trying to bring back a memory that would not come.

  He did not hear the intruder until the man's voice echoed in the room.

  Broom's eyes opened, and instantly every muscle and nerve in hishard-trained body tensed for action. There was a man standing in thedoorway of the office.

  He was not a particularly impressive man, in spite of the queer cut ofhis clothes. He was not as tall as Broom, and he looked soft andoverfed. His paunch protruded roundly from the open front of the shortcoat, and there was a fleshiness about his face that betrayed too