were at least fifty candles, all lit. A large cut-quartz chan-
delier held a number of red candles, also, but these were
unlit.
Glam stopped to indicate a chair. Childe advanced
slowly to it. The baron, at the head of the table, rose to
greet him. His smile was broad but fleeting. He said,
"Welcome, Mr. Childe, despite the circumstances. Please
sit down there. Next to Mrs. Grasatchow."
There were four men and six women at the table.
The baron.
Magda Holyani.
Mrs. Grasatchow, who was almost the fattest woman
he had ever seen.
The baron's great-grandmother, who had to be at least
a hundred.
Vivienne Mabcrough, the titian-haired woman with
the man-headed snake-thing in her womb.
O'Riley O'Faithair, a handsome black-haired man of
about thirty-five who spoke a charming Irish brogue. And
now and then a few sentences in an unknown language to
the baron and the Mabcrough woman.
Mr. Bending Grass, who had a very broad and high-
cheekboned face with a huge aquiline nose and huge,
slightly slanted, very dark eyes. He could have been Sit-
ting Bull's twin, but something he said to Mrs. Grasatchow
indicated that he was Crow. He spoke of the mountain
man, John Johnston, "Liver Eating Johnston," as if he
had been a contemporary.
Fred Pao, a tall slender Chinese with features that
could have been carved out of teak and a Fu Manchu
moustache and goatee.
Panchita Pocyotl, a short petite and beautiful Mexican
Indian.
Rebecca Ngima, a handsome lithe black African dressed
in a long white native costume.
They were all expensively and tastefully dressed and,
though their speech was not free of foreign pronuncia-
tion, their English was fluent, "correct," and rich with
literary, philosophical, historical, and musical allusions.
There were also references to events and persons and
places that puzzled Childe, who was well-read. They
seemed to have been everywhere and, here he felt cold
threading the needle of his nerves, to have lived in times
long dead.
Was this for his benefit? An addition to the hoax?
What hoax?
It was then that he got another- shock, because the
baron addressed him again as Mr. Childe. With a start, he
remembered the first time. He had been too dull to have
realized then what that meant.
"How did you learn my name? I carried no identifica-
tion with me."
The baron smiled. "You don't really expect me to tell
you?"
Childe shrugged and began eating. There were many
different dishes on the sideboard; he had been given a
wide choice but had decided on New York-cut steak and
baked potato. Mrs. Grasatchow, who sat on his left, had
a platter with an entire bonita fish and a huge bowl of
salad. She drank before, during, and after the meal from
a gallon decanter of bourbon. The decanter was full when
she sat down and empty when the dishes were cleared off
the table.
Glam and two short, dark, and shapely women in maid
uniforms served. The women did not act like servants,
however, they frequently talked with the guests and the
host and several times made remarks in the foreign tongue
that caused the others to laugh. Glam spoke only when
his duties required. He glanced at Magda far more than
his duties required.
The baroness, seated at the opposite end from her great-
grandson, bent like a living question mark, or vulture,
over her soup. This was the only food she was served, and
she allowed it to get cold before she finally finished it.
She said very little and only looked up twice, once to stare
a long time at Childe. She looked as if she had only re-
cently been brought out of an Egyptian pyramid and as if
gown, high-necked, ruffle-bosomed, diamond-sequined,
red velvet, looked as if she had purchased it in 1890.
Mrs. Grasatchow, although as fat as two sows put to-
gether, had a remarkably white, flawless, and creamy skin
and enormous purplish eyes. When she had been younger
and thinner, she must have been a beautiful woman. She
talked now as if she thought she was still beautiful, per-
haps the most beautiful and desirable woman in the world.
She talked loudly and uninhibitedly about the men who
had died—some of them literally—for her love. Halfway
through the dinner, and two-thirds through the gallon of
whiskey, her speech began to get slurred. Childe was awed.
She had drunk enough to kill him, or most men, and she
only had a little trouble with her speech.
She had drunk far more than the Chinese, Pao, who
had downed much wine during the evening, but not much
relative to her. Yet nobody reprimanded her, but Igescu
seemed concerned about Pao. He was speaking to him
in a corner, and though Childe could not hear them, he
saw Igescu's hand come down on Pao's wrist, and Igescu
shook his head and then jerked the thumb of his other
hand at Childe.
Suddenly, Pao began to shake, and he ran out of the
room. He was in a hurry to get out, but Childe did not
think that he was about to vomit. He did not have the
pale skin and desperate expression of one whose guts are
ready to launch their contents.
The dishes were cleared and cigars and brandy and
wine were served. (My God! was Mrs. Grasatchow really
going to smoke that ten-dollar cigar and pour down a
huge snifter of brandy on top of that whiskey?)
The baron spoke to Childe:
"You realize, of course, that I could easily have had
you killed for trespassing, for entering, for voyeurism, et
cetera, but mostly for entering? Now, perhaps, you would
like to tell me what you are up to?"
Childe hesitated. The baron knew his name and must,
therefore, know that he was a private investigator. And
that he had been a partner of Colben. He must realize
that, somehow, Childe had tracked him down, and he
must be curious about what had led Childe here. He might
be wondering if Childe had told anybody that he was
coming out here.
Childe decided to be frank. He also decided that he
would tell the baron that the LAPD knew he was here
and that if they did not hear from him at a certain time,
they would come out here to find out why.
Igescu listened with a smile that seemed amused. He
said, "Of course! And what would they find if they did
come out here, which they are not likely to do?"
Perhaps they would find something Igescu did not
suspect. They might find two naked people tied to each
other. Igescu might have a difficult time explaining them,
but they would not be a dangerous liability. Just puzzling
to the police and inconvenient to Igescu.
At that moment Vasili Chornkin and Mrs. Kra
utschner,
fully clothed, entered. They stopped for a moment, stared
at Childe, and then walked on in. The blonde stopped by
Igescu to whisper in his ear; the man sat down and or-
dered something to eat. Igescu looked at Childe, frowned,
and then smiled. He said something to Mrs. Krautschner.
She laughed and sat down by Chornkin.
Childe felt even more trapped. He could do nothing
except, perhaps, make a break for it, but he doubted that
he would get far. There was nothing for him to do except
drift with the current of Igescu's wishes and hope that he
would get a chance to escape.
The baron, looking over the brandy snifter just below
his nose, said, "Did you get a chance to read Le Garrault,
Mr. Childe?"
"No, I didn't. But I understand the UCLA library is
closed because of the smog."
The baron stood up. "Let's go into the library and talk
where it's quieter."
Mrs. Grasatchow heaved up from the chair, blowing
shoulder; the flesh drooped like tangles of jungle vines.
"I'll go with you, baby, you don't want to go without me."
"You can stay here for the time being," Igescu said.
Mrs. Grasatchow glared at the baron, but she dropped
her arm from Childe and sat down.
The library was a large dark room with leather-covered
walls and massive dark-wood built-in shelves and at least
five thousand books, some of them looking centuries old.
The baron sat down in an overstuffed leather-covered
chair with a wooden back carved in the form of a bat-
winged Satan. Childe sat down in a similar chair, the back
of which was a carved troll.
"Le Garrault …" the baron said.
"What's going on here?" Childe said. "Why the party?"
"You aren't interested in Le Garrault?"
"Sure, I'm interested. But I think there are things of
much more interest just now. For instance, my survival."
"That is up to you, of course. One's survival is always
up to one's self. Other people only play the part that you
permit. But then, that's another theory. For the present,
let's pretend that you are my guest and may leave at any
time you wish—which can be the true situation, for all
you know. Believe me, I am not telling you about Le
Garrault just to pass the time. Am I?"
The baron continued to smile. Childe thought about
Sybil and got angry. But he knew that it would do no
good to ask the baron about her. If the baron had her, he
would admit it only if it served some purpose of his.
"The old Belgian scholar knew more about the occult
and the supernatural and the so-called weird than any
other man who ever lived. I don't mean that he knew
more than anybody else. I mean that he knew more than
any other man."
The baron paused to draw in cigar smoke. Childe felt
himself getting tense, although he was making an effort
to relax.
"Old Le Garrault found records which other scholars
did not find or else saw in these records what other schol-
ars missed. Or possibly he may have talked to some of
the—what should I call them? unmen?—some of the un-
men, the pseudo-men, and gotten his facts, which we shall
theory, directly from them.
"In any event, Le Garrault speculated that the so-
called vampires, werewolves, poltergeists, ghosts, and so
on, might be living creatures from a parallel universe. Or
a number of parallel universes. You know what a parallel
universe is?"
"It's a concept originated by some science-fiction
author, I believe," Childe said. "I think that the theory is
that a number, perhaps an infinite number, of universes
may occupy the same space. They can do this because
they are all polarized or at right angles to each other.
Those terms are actually meaningless, but they do signify
that some physical mechanism enables more than one
cosmos to fill the same quote space unquote. The concept
of parallel universes was used and is being used by
science-fiction writers to depict worlds just like ours, or
only slightly differing, or wildly different. Like an Earth
where the South won the Civil War. That idea has been
used at least three times, that I know of."
"Very good," the baron said. "Except that your ex-
amples are not quite correct. None of the three stories
you are thinking about postulated a parallel universe.
Churchill's and Kantor's were what if stories, and Moore's
was a time travel story. But you have the right idea.
However, Le Garrault was the first to publish the theory
of parallel universes, although the publication was so
restricted and so obscure that very few people knew
about it. And Le Garrault did not postulate a series of
universes which diverged only slightly at one end of the
series, that is, the end nearest to Earth's cosmos, and
diverged more the further away you got from Earth's.
"No, he speculated that these other universes were
nothing at all like Earth's, that they had different physical
'laws,' that many of them would be completely incompre-
hensible to Earthmen who might broach the 'walls' be-
tween the universes."
"Then he said that there might be 'gates' or 'breaks'
in the 'walls' and that occasionally a dweller of one uni-
verse might go into another?"
"He said more than that. He called his speculation a
theory, but he believed that the theory was a fact. He
believed that there were temporary breaks in the walls,
accidental cracks, or openings which sometimes existed
because of weaknesses or flaws.
"He said that creatures—sentient and non-sentient—
sometimes entered our universe through these breaks. But
they have forms so alien that the human brain has no
forms to fit them. And so the human brain gives them
forms to explain them. He said that it is not just a matter
of humans seeing the aliens as such and such. It is a mat-
ter of the aliens actually being molded into these forms
because they cannot survive long in this universe unless
they have forms that conform to the physical 'laws' of this
universe. The forms may not conform one hundred per-
cent, but they are close enough. And, in fact, an alien
may have more than one form, because that is the way
the human sees him. Hence, the werewolf, who had a
human form and wolf form, and the vampire, who has a
human form and a bat form."
This man is really putting me on, Childe thought. Or
else he is so insane that he actually believes this. But what
is he leading up to, that he is one of the aliens?
The baron said, "Some of the extra-universals came
here accidentally, were caught in the flaws, and were un-
able to get back. Others were exiles or criminals, sent by
the people of their world to this Botany Bay—this Earth."
"Fascinating speculation," Chi
lde said. "But why do
these take certain forms and not others?"
"Because, in their case, the myth, the legend, the su-
perstition, call it what you will, gave birth to the reality.
First, there were the beliefs and tales about the were-
beast and the vampire and the ghost and the et cetera.
These beliefs and tales existed long ago, long before his-
tory, long before civilization. In one form or another,
these beliefs existed in the Old Stone Age."
Childe shifted to relieve his discomfort. He felt cold
again, as if a shadow had slid over him. That shadow was
of a hulking half-brute figure, bulge-browed, ape-jawed.
And behind it were other shadows of figures with long
fangs and great claws and strange shapes.
The baron continued, "There is, according to Le Gar-
rault, a psychic imprinting. He did not use the word im-
printing, but his description meant that. He said that the
aliens are able to survive for a short while in their own
form when they come to this universe. They are in a state
of fluidity, of dying fluidity."
"Fluidity?"
"Their forms are trying to change to conform to the
physical laws of this universe. A universe which is as in-
comprehensible to them as theirs would be to an Earth-
man. The effort sets up stresses and strains which would
inevitably tear them apart, kill them. Unless they encoun-
ter a human being. And, if they are lucky enough to be
from a universe which enables them to receive—telepath-
ically, I suppose, although that term is too restricted—en-
ables them to receive the impressions of the human mind,
then the alien is able to make the adaptation. He is ena-
bled because he comprehends the form in which he can
survive in this world. Do you follow me?"
"In a way. But not too well."
"It's almost as difficult to explain this as it is for
a mystic to explain his visions. You realize that my ex-
planations no more fit the facts, the true processes, than
the description of the atom as a sort of miniature solar
system fitted the true processes."
"I understand that, at least. You're using analogies."
"Strained analogies. But the theory says that the alien,
if he is lucky, encounters human beings who perceive him
as something unnatural, which he is, in a sense, since he is