you like.”
Jeremy shook his hand. “Jeremy Hochstader.”
“Fine old German name, Hochstader. Used to have a client by that name. Never went anywhere — wrote fantasy, if memory serves.”
The man in knickers went harumphing past, apparently still upset about the muffed shot.
Dalton said, “That’s Thaxton. Don’t mind him. Golf’s not his game, and I won’t play tennis with him.”
“Where the hell is this place?” Jeremy blurted.
Dalton shrugged. “This place? Nobody knows. Some world, in some time or space, somewhere. Just one of the worlds accessible via the castle.”
“But where’s the castle?” Jeremy demanded.
“Nobody really knows that, either. But it’s real, son. It’s real. Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s all a dream.”
“Yeah, I gave up on that yesterday.”
“Get anything to eat yet?”
Jeremy nodded. “Uh-huh. They fed me.”
“Good,” Dalton said. “By the way, did you ever caddy?”
Six
City
Gene had chosen a high tower as his residence, staking out an apartment on a high floor. Above this level lay only a few small chambers, some containing building machinery. There was water in a storage tank on the roof; as for food, the city had given him all he wanted, when he had asked for it.
He had very soon found out that the city was alive, or at least was a conscious entity of some sort. He had walked right in through an open gate. Looking around, he heard a quasi-human voice speaking a strange language. After searching for the source, he eventually realized that the voice had been that of the city itself, or of some artificial intelligence that was part of the city’s computer control system. As for other intelligent inhabitants, the place was as deserted as it looked, and very old.
The city had learned colloquial English very quickly, from Gene, mostly; its only other source was a tattered paperback Gene had been carrying, a science fiction novel with a futuristic trailer truck on the cover. It still spoke with the machine equivalent of an accent, slurring its syllables occasionally. Otherwise the city was quite intelligible.
The city had a name: Zond.
“I see that your genetic makeup is quite divergent from the beings who built me,” Zond told Gene.
“Perceptive of you,” Gene told the city. “Does that change anything?”
“Nope.”
“Really. Why? Weren’t you designed to serve whoever it was who built you?”
“That’s true, but my original programming also includes instructions about showing hospitality to visitors. You’re a visitor; you get hospitality.”
“Nice and friendly, your builders. What was the name you called them again?”
“The Umoi.”
“Funny name.”
“What’s funny about it?”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to offend.”
“No, I was just asking,” Zond said. “I haven’t had a good laugh in centuries.”
He had many conversations like this one over the next several weeks. He learned something about the Umoi, who had been a squat, reptilelike race, somewhat resembling terrestrial toads. They had had a long and complex history, culminating in the building of a small number of these self-contained, fully sentient cities. By that time the Umoi population had shrunk to a tiny fraction of what it was in earlier periods. Then — Gene did not know exactly what had happened. The Umoi died off gradually, after deserting the cities. History had simply petered out at some point. Gene had a little trouble converting Umoi time scales into Earth equivalents, but it looked as though the Umoi had become extinct between 100,000 and 150,000 years ago. Anyway, it was a long time since the Umoi had walked this world. The city’s main domes had weathered and faded, but for the most part the city was still intact and functioning.
His apartment gave him a commanding view of the city. After spending most of the day in the city library. Gene would go back to his lair and eat a synthesized but palatable dinner. Then he would sit at a window and look out at tall spires set against the plains beyond, waiting until the swollen yellow sun set behind distant mountains. Then he would crawl into an Umoi bed — a simple affair like a sleeping bag with a spongy bottom — and listen to the silence until he dozed off.
He would dream of empty cities and of a race that gave up living.
Awake, he would give some thought to trying to find the portal, though he was acutely aware of the possibility that it might never again make an appearance in this world. Even if it did, there was no telling where it would pop up, or for how long.
But he had the resources of the city to help him. From what Gene could surmise, the Umoi had forgotten more science and technology than terrestrial humans had ever created. The twilight years of Umoi civilization had been characterized by a racial desire to simplify life, to return to the basics of existence. In this the Umoi had succeeded only too well, relaxing their hold on things to the extent that life simply slipped away. Gene suspected that degenerate Umoi cultures had continued to scrape by outside the cities for a long stretch, perhaps for as long as fifty thousand years. Things had been very peaceful and natural for centuries; but in time, ancient enemies took their toll: disease, dwindling resources, stagnation. The Umoi had gone out with barely a whimper.
“Case in point, lesson taken,” Gene intoned, sitting at a library view screen, “in the twilight … area.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Uh, nothing. I gotta stop talking to myself.”
“Is this habit common among your species?”
“Yes, perfectly normal. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” Gene yawned. “I’m bushed, but let’s go over this once again. You say that the Umoi developed the technique of interdimensional travel centuries ago but abandoned it?”
“The Umoi weren’t concerned with the practical applications of their discoveries,” the city told him.
“How pure and virtuous. But are you telling me that one of these machines exists somewhere on the planet?”
“I’m telling you that it’s a possibility.”
“Where?”
“I can’t be certain, but such a machine was reputed to have been built in the city of Annau, long ago. It may still be there.”
“Where’s Annau?”
The screen displayed a map. A flashing dot marked the spot.
“Here.”
“Okay. Where is that in relation to where we are?”
“The city of Annau lies exactly four thousand
Gene whistled. “Jeez. Quite a hike, even if I don’t know exactly how long a
“Transportation can be provided.”
“Yeah? What kind?”
“A self-propelled, cross-country vehicle powered by the nuclear fusion of certain isotopes of hydrogen. Primitive, but effective.”
“Sounds like a great way to go, but it’s still a long shot.”
“Define ‘long shot.’“
