Part 21 (1/2)

”It figures,” he muttered, hoisting himself up to perch on the thin edge. The worlds were fascinating in their variety, but he certainly wasn't being much of a help so far.

Soon she was partially hidden behind the translucency of angled planes; he could detect her motion, not her image. She was looking for the next projector, of course.

Suppose she didn't find it? There was no guarantee that a given world had a projector or that it would be within a thousand miles. There had to be an end to the line somewhere.

A chill of apprehension crawled over him. No guarantee the next world would have air to breathe, either! They were playing one h.e.l.l of a roulette game!

Maybe they would go on and on forever, meeting such a bewildering array of alternates that eventually they would forget which one they had started from, forget Earth itself.

Well, he had volunteered for the course!

Tamme was now invisible. Veg looked about, becoming bored with the local configurations. He wanted to explore some on his own, but he knew he had to remain as a reference point. This alternate was pretty in its fas.h.i.+on, but what was there to do?

He noticed that the plastic plane he perched on was not in ideal repair. Strips of it were flaking off. Maybe it was molting, shedding its skin as it grew. Ha-ha.

Idly, he peeled off a length of it, moved by the same mild compulsion that caused people to peel the plastic from new glossy book restorations. The stuff was almost colorless in this depth, flexible and a bit crackly. He folded it over, and it made a neat, straight crease without breaking.

That gave him a notion. He began folding off triangular sections. He was making a hexaflexagon!

”Let's go,” Tamme said.

Veg looked up. ”You found it, huh?” He tucked his creation into a pocket and followed her, leaping from plane to plane, stretching his legs at last.

It was hidden in the convergence of three planes, nestled securely. ”Kilroy was here, all right,” he murmured.

Tamme glanced at him sharply. ”Who?”

”You don't know Kilroy? He's from way back.”

”Oh -- a figure of speech.” She bent over the projector.

So that was a gap in the agent education: They didn't know about Kilroy. He probably wasn't considered important enough to be included in their programming. Their loss!

The projector came on --

-- and they were back in the blizzard.

”A circuit!” Tamme cried in his ear, exasperated. ”Well, I know where the projector is.” She bundled him into her clothes and plunged forward.

”Maybe it's not the same one!” Veg cried.

”It is the same. There's our igloo.” Sure enough, they were pa.s.sing it. But Veg noted that they had landed in a slightly different place this time, for the igloo had been built at their prior landing site. This time they had arrived about fifty feet to the side. Was that significant? He was too cold to think it out properly.

In minutes they found it. ”There's been time to recharge it -- just,” she said. Then: ”That's funny.”

”What?” he asked, s.h.i.+vering in the gale.

”This is a left-handed projector, more or less.”

”Same one we used before,” he said. ”Let's get on with it.”