Renaissance, page 13
As he watched these latter, he had his first clue. The method was absolutely sensational to a scientist like himself.
Near Grayson, a woman shoved upward at the feet of another woman who was accidentally above her. The shover was precipitated to the floor. The shoved went up to the ceiling. Arrived there, she deliberately pushed at it. And down she went to the floor, also.
Hey! thought an astounded Grayson. That's the third law of motion.
Instant corollary: But there is no force being applied to hold me up. That must mean - it was an immediate concomitant -there's no gravity.
But-All around him, as his mind poised before an awesome array of contradictions, other women were pushing at each other. Action and reaction. Some of them used their skirts to trap the air, and shove at it like a bird's wing, flapping.
Whatever the method, down to the floor they went. And, at the moment of landing, placed their feet flat on the floor. And then—
Each woman walked as if at each step she had to pull that foot out of quicksand. Or - Grayson recognized abruptly - as if the sole was magnetically attaching… at each step… to an iron or steel floor.
So that's why we've got those overshoes. They have magnetized soles.
Abruptly, the clues were enough.
Figuratively, his gaze flew again to the glossy black walls, with the pictures on them of the starry heavens. The great thought that came - a dazzling revelation - was: Those are not pictures of stars. They are stars in black space as seen through a transparent plastic.
A window! We're in an orbiting spacecraft.
Somehow, as they walked from the parking lot on Floor 34 up to Floor 35, and into that tiny alcove, a thousand women and he had crossed a barrier. Unnoticing, feeling nothing, no sense of movement through space, no momentary blackout at the instant of transition from the building to… twenty-four thousand miles up. Maybe farther.
Even as he kept adjusting his mind, even as the event grew and grew inside him, as he tried to evaluate the incredibly advanced physics required, another, more human, feeling began to move along a parallel track on the feeling of his being. A sinking sensation. An awareness of the impossibility of anyone on earth - any human - resisting the super-race that could achieve this marvel of mass transportation.
Hut at least - he thought - now I know how to get down to the floor.
Feeling more resigned than anything else, he was about to do exactly that - go 'down' - when…
The tingling began once more on the back of his hand.
chapter twenty-five
Fear!
Grayson felt the blood drain from his cheeks. And it was that, presently, that he noticed. And it braced him slightly. ' Because - I'll be damned… it was a physiologic reaction, not dependent on gravity. It seemed to mean that bloodflow inside his body related to the physics of liquids moving through pipes under pressure.
He was balancing himself by this time. And taking directional readings - as before. Unfortunately, this time, when he fired his invisible beam… the tingling continued.
Okay, okay - resigned. Superior science has taken over. As if something analyzed the problem. And solved it. ' So - first - get to the floor. Then decide what to do about the detector system that was now permanently zeroed in on him.
Permanently, meaning as long as he was in the vicinity. And he wasn't leaving yet. Because, there actually was no place for him to go.
It was really time. During those minutes of his strange battle with an electronic spy system, eighty percent of the women had precipitated themselves in what he still thought of as the… downward… direction. And those that remained were rapidly descending to join them.
Within minutes, anyone remaining in the air would look conspicuous.
Hastily, with that thought, Grayson now, finally, made another, larger survey of that giant room. All the way around. And there, indeed, behind him - about forty feet - was Miss Lesser. The moment he turned, she waved frantically. Too wildly. The action tipped her over on her back. In a manner of speaking, then, she lay there, struggling a little, but obviously with no clear idea of how she had tilted herself, or of what to do about it.
Grayson used his dress, as some of the women had done, like a bird's wing to flail his lean body over to her. He grasped her arm as he floated by. And at her ear he spoke the necessary instruction about what to do when she reached the floor.
(What he meant by floor was not a point that he tried to explain to her.)
He did as the others had done: shoved gently. She went 'down.' He went 'up.' There, like so many women - the guides, he presumed - had done before him, he placed his hands on what turned out to be a smooth surface. And shoved himself back the way he had come.
He managed by dint of maneuvering to land on a bare space. Thereupon, he did what he had instructed Miss Lesser to do: placed both feet squarely on that surface. As it had for a thousand women, the method worked for him perfectly. His magnetized overshoes grabbed, and held. And thereby the surface became a floor for him, also.
That 'floor' had already revealed a second quality. Everywhere women - again, it had to be the guides who would know - were bending down. Inserting fingers into slots. And pulling out and up… a chair that remained attached by its back legs, unfolded, and because a seat.
Grayson took note of which direction the chairs faced. Which meant he located the stage, also. Calmly, but firmly, and somewhat awkwardly - the magnetized soles kept clinging at each step - he led Miss Lesser toward the rear of what, in the space of a few minutes, had become a large auditorium. They ended up sitting in the back row.
The physicist sat there kind of blank, it seemed to him.
And so he did not immediately notice the scientific superiority feeling he was experiencing… Can it be that this is why the Utt refused all women of earth the privilege of becoming scientists? So that they would be vulnerable to the belief that this is heaven… ? The phenomenon, to untrained minds, must be absolutely awesome.
Suddenly, he visualized Mila as she had been all these years. Somebody would, of course, have 'guided' her up here. Her subsequent actions, examined in retrospect, showed total acceptance at the overwhelm level. And, until recently - until he changed - her only escape had been an occasional drunken bout. Of which he had no memory afterward.
The superiority attitude continued. But he also felt forgiving. The truth was, against the Utt, men had not been that great, either.
As he had the thoughts, several women climbed onto the distant stage. One of these walked forward, and said something. Her words came to Grayson as a faraway mumble. But the entire female audience greeted the statement with a great cheer
- as if they had heard what she said.
The meeting continued in that same inaudible fashion. Apparently - so reasoned a disappointed Grayson - the rest of the audience heard what was said by way of a special ear device. And he and Miss Lesser (who had come illegally) didn't. For this he was not prepared.
From the way the woman on the stage kept bowing, and putting her hands together in the prayer position, there seemed no question. It was indeed a religious service.
- The Utt must have studied mankind's religions. And here in the 'West' they had the Christian punishment-and-reward system. These women had become sexless angels. Than which no one could become more frigid… at least, that was his picture of the female body once it arrived in heaven—
Actually, it was a startling thing the invaders had done. They had taken a beautiful symbolic idea - heaven - and given it a location in space. And required of the worshippers a literal adherence to a Victorian interpretation of biblical saintly behavior.
Right now that had one excellent feature. He could do certain things. He could seek out the source of the spy ray. And this scientifically untrained mass of femininity wouldn't be able to stop him.
Grayson hadn't thought of himself as in the process of making up his mind. But, abruptly, there it was: decision.
He leaned toward Miss Lesser; whispered into her ear; 'You stay here, and report to me later what happened. Particularly, notice how they get back to—' He stopped; figuratively teetered there verbally. He had been about to say, '-… back to earth.'
Instead, he finished rather lamely, '. . . back to the parking area.'
Having, in fact, said the right words, he recovered his decisiveness. And stood up energetically. Miss Lesser made the mistake, then, of turning her head and watching him as he maneuvered to get to the ceiling. It was a mistake because Grayson pulled his left overshoe sole free of its magnetic contact with the'floor. Bent over. Put both hands on the floor. Jerked his other foot free, as if he were going to stand on his hands. And shoved with both arms.
Scientific know-how could do that for a person who understood the reality involved. But as his body, thus propelled, rose effortlessly into the air, head 'down,' the young police woman's eyes widened. And then glazed.
Since she was still safely seated, Grayson turned his eyes away from her and from whatever turmoil she was experiencing.
And, temporarily, forgot her.
chapter twenty-six
For Grayson, who understood that this was an outer-space phenomenon, a world of no ups and no downs, there wasn't any sense of oddness. On arriving at the 'ceiling,' he placed his feet flat on that floor. So that if there was metal there, his overshoes would magnetically attach.
It was a great moment, then, when first his left foot, and then his right, actually made a clicking sound. And the ceiling-floor grabbed and held each in turn.
And so, there he stood, upside down in relation to everyone else. If any of the women looked up, they now saw a strange sight. A woman, head 'down,' walking in the clumping fashion of magnetic shoes across the ceiling. Where he-she was walking to was what, from a distance, appeared to be the head of a staircase.
It was the head of a staircase. Except, of course, it went down in relation to him, but to any watching women it was as if he now walked up into the ceiling. Where that took him was another floor. And now that there were no visible females, it was easier to accept that he was standing in a normal way on a normal floor.
What he had come down to was another of those floor areas that looked like a hotel lobby. His quick, darting gaze noticed at once that there were half a dozen corridors branching off from the 'lobby.' And that was not a problem. His direction finder remained fixed. Unerringly, he headed along the third corridor (from the right), past several doors. And then there, according to his 'fix,' was the door.
The door panel was gray and glossy, smooth and plastic-looking. As Grayson tentatively shoved at it, it opened with an unexpected mechanical action. Retreated five inches. Then lifted up out of sight. The portion of room that was thus revealed looked ordinary enough.
Normally, under the severe circumstances by which he had come here, Grayson would have paused to survey even the most harmless-appearing object or location. But the action of the door brought the thought that it might come gliding down as rapidly as it had gone up.
And so, with only a flick of his eyes this way and another flick that… he stepped across the threshold.
Even now, at his second look, the room seemed disappointingly ordinary. It had a few earth-type chairs. A table. A cot with a pillow at one end. A viewplate on one wall, and off to one side, an alcove leading to what he presumed was a clothes closet.
The appearance was, in fact, so mundane that Grayson had consciously to resist a feeling of relief. And, of course, his knowledge helped. This was an era of science where, even on earth - in fact, for his entire adult lifetime - electronic equipment had been miniaturized to the point of virtual, invisibility.
Something from this room had noticed, was noticing, him. Whatever it was, the energy beam from the laser device in his shoulder padding put it out of commission. Yet it had at once repaired itself.
It was for the debris of that initial discharge that he searched. To find it, he utilized a micro-computer with micro-attachments, all of which were glued under the middle finger of his left hand.
Which signaled him over to the viewplate on the wall. Grayson had to admit that was a location where one might expect to find a spy device. He knelt for a closer look.
A closer look? In a way, an impossibility - it turned out. This viewplate was designed to operate at several levels. That was what his expert eye saw, now that he was bending close. At the gross level, the instrument actually worked as a large screen for the well-known television channels. Below that, there was not just one, there were several additional divisions into progressively smaller systems.
The screen itself, Grayson noted, was made up of microinstruments, hundreds of them. At least a thousand divisions-in-size below that was a mini-micro electro-world. On earth, mini-micro units were available for innumerable purposes; so that level was within his training.
But there was a fourth level of ultra-miniaturization em-bedded in the mini-micro instrumentation. That was not visible, as such, even with the special magnifying computer that he carried with him like an extra fountain pen. Its presence was implicit in the design of Level Three. And what that told a saddened Grayson - told him once again - was that here was a technology far beyond anything he knew.
Fortunately, the spy ray was at the second level. But there disappointment awaited him again. His aim had been all too accurate. There was a tiny burned area on the viewplate, close to the floor. And an energized dot on the floor itself. That turned out to be the hole the laser beam had drilled on its way to the real target.
Grayson straightened with the reluctant realization that all there was left to do was search this room, and the adjoining ones; and then return to Doris Lesser. Standing there, frustrated, his eyes took in the room several times. It was on the fifth of these rapid surveys that his attention finally focused on the clothes closet.
He went over, of course. And the alcove did not lead to a clothes closet at all. With suddenly widening eyes he found himself gazing at what, at close quarters, looked like the same bluish panel size and shape as the one of the thirty-fifth floor of the Heaven building on earth. There he had watched the Artificial Blonde reach forth with her arm and hand, and there he had reached in the same way.
At the time he had been too completely caught by surprise even to think of investigating the magical instrument. Now, he ought at least to find out what might be involved in a proper research job.
He put his hand out. Slowly. Inching it - millimetering it -forward. Suddenly the tip of the long middle finger met resistance.
Grayson drew back, impressed. Right there, inches in front of the blue panel, something that registered as, of all things, a barrier.
Again, the extended hand and fingers. This time, at the exact location where he felt the… barrier… he pushed fractionally forward. Instantly something tried to grab the tip of the finger.
Grayson jerked back, startled.
All right, all right, so it's that violent.
It was already obvious that for the research task he would need instrumentation. So it was definitely something for later. After he had considered what instruments might be useful. Do it soon, naturally.
Too bad, in a way, but intellectually true that nothing should be done immediately. With that, he turned to leave the alcove. And, as he did so, heard a sound.
He was quick, then. He spun around on one heel. Thus, he had a fleeting glimpse of - of—
He came to in a small room, half-sitting, half-lying on a soft, rubbery floor. And his very first thought was: What was it? What did I see?
Nothing live. Whatever it was had glittered like a mirror mounted on - Wait! Not just one mirror. Thousands of little mirrors. Tiny, gleaming surfaces with pictures on them.
What stunned him was that he was suddenly realizing where the mirror-bright gleamings had originated. From the view-plate. The alcove and the viewplate were aligned. They were across the room from each other. And, somehow, he, who was usually so aware, hadn't noticed.
It was the fourth level of smallness - he analyzed. The matter transmitter in the alcove needed the assistance of that ultra-miniaturized system.
Needed it for what? - Sudden shock feeling,
He had the awful sinking sensation that such an alignment was utilized for extremely sensitive purposes. For refinements that were apparently not necessary in the transmission system used to get people to the orbiting station.
Where to? bethought, shaken. Where to?
It had felt different this time. Not like being grabbed, and shoved. Simply - blank - and here I am.
Slowly, Physicist Grayson, whose visible behavior was proof of the correctness of Utt theories about the human male, climbed to his feet. He was careful because he didn't quite know how his body would react. After a long moment - relief. No dizziness. Strength seemed normal. So he had survived the journey.
Standing up, he saw that this room was completely bare, except directly across from him was an entire wall of alcoves with recessed bluish panels. Uncertainly, not knowing what else to do, he counted them: one, two… fourteen.
It was an impressive total. Presumably, they could all take him somewhere. That brought an uneasy feeling, and a return of the thought, stronger this time: 'Where am I, now?'
The first transport had taken him from the thirty-fifth floor of an earth building to an orbiting satellite thousands of miles away. This second one?—
Uneasily, he walked across the room, and paused a short distance from the array of other matter transmitters. Fourteen different places that he could go. That was instantly shaking. Because so many in one little room. Something of the vastness of what was here was in that awareness.
What do they do? he wondered. Bring these… transmitters… to a place like the solar system? And then they don't need to come by ship anymore?
There was a genuine door to his left. And he walked firmly toward it. No more journeys for Peter Grayson, thank you, until he knew exactly where he was, and exactly where he was heading next.
