Read Online 02. The Shadow Dancers by Jack L. Chalker - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jack L. Chalker
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folks up in a control room high and to one side throw the switches and it starts with a rumblin' under your feet that sorta shakes the whole building, like a vibrator. Then this line is drawn, straight up and down, just a little above the floor, in a kind of blue-white light. It just starts from nowhere, then draws itself to maybe fifteen or twenty feet high. When they're happy with it, they throw more switches and more lines start kinda branchin' off from the other line. Like half the line just falls away and then you have an L, then another from it to make a squared-off U and finally a top, so you got this big square of light.
Then the whole square slips off and you got two sides, then it splits again, and again, till you got a cube of light just sittin' there. Then it really starts goin' fast, foldin' and twistin' in and out of itself until you got a whole mess of cubes connected together. All of it looks like just lights; there ain't nothin' to be seen, but it's kinda neat to look at.
Then you walk right into the mess, even as it twists and turns, goin' to the middle of the thing, until everybody's in the same cube.
From inside, it looks different. You're in this cube of light, all right, but it seems kinda hard and solid somehow. You can see a cube or two ahead or behind, but you can't hear nothin' at all. It's like all the sounds just go away.
When we first fell into this thing by accident a coupla years ago, we only went forward or back, but you can go other ways, too. If you look at the top of the cube, then keep lookin' at it as you walk, the cube kinda, well, rotates, if you can imagine it, and you walk through the top; same with the bottom or sides. Wherever you look when you start walkin', that's where you go.
Startin' almost with the next cube, though, not all themcube faces are blank. You get, well, flashes of places, or things. Sunsets, green hills, you name it. They ain't exactly real when you look at 'em, more like reflections in a mirror, but you know they are real and that if you go to that cube you'll come out there. Some-a lot-are dark. Sometimes where you're lookin' is the inside of a hill, or maybe up in the air with nothin' below, dependin' on what happened to the spot you're standin' on. That's really the hard part- you don't move all that much for all the walkin' you do through the thing. You can come out just where you went in, but a hundred or a thousand worlds away.
And you can come out some other place, but not without goin' through a switchin' cube. You can always tell a switchin' cube. All the faces but one are dark, and that one has somebody in a room, just a room, sittin' in a chair, lookin' at a whole mess of switches, dials, and screens. If they talk, you can hear 'em, and if you talk, you can be heard, 'cept you sound more'n a little dead and flat.
Lots of them switchers ain't human, neither. At least, they ain't our kind of human. First one we got to was a guy with hair all over his face and a real animallike look; sorta the Wolfman in some fancy uniform. Bill says most of the switchers are from the Type One worlds 'cause many of 'em got better hearin' and can see more stuif than we can and for some reason that's important. They don't speak English, neither, or any other language we know, but thanks to some little gizmo when we talk it's translated to their language and when they talk it's translated to ours.
Keeps things simpler. When 1 think of the number of languages they talk just on our world, then you got to figure how many there must be goin' through here.
"Amitash fridlap!" said the hairy guy. It don't translate till it knows both languages to use, of course.
"Headquarters, please," Bill responded, just like he understood that crap. "Special Agent Markham, world thirteen twenty-nine two stroke seven, with authorized encoded personnel from the same coordinates."
"English, huh?" the switcher grunted. "Okay, I've got you identified on my screen. You're authorized to the
Then the whole square slips off and you got two sides, then it splits again, and again, till you got a cube of light just sittin' there. Then it really starts goin' fast, foldin' and twistin' in and out of itself until you got a whole mess of cubes connected together. All of it looks like just lights; there ain't nothin' to be seen, but it's kinda neat to look at.
Then you walk right into the mess, even as it twists and turns, goin' to the middle of the thing, until everybody's in the same cube.
From inside, it looks different. You're in this cube of light, all right, but it seems kinda hard and solid somehow. You can see a cube or two ahead or behind, but you can't hear nothin' at all. It's like all the sounds just go away.
When we first fell into this thing by accident a coupla years ago, we only went forward or back, but you can go other ways, too. If you look at the top of the cube, then keep lookin' at it as you walk, the cube kinda, well, rotates, if you can imagine it, and you walk through the top; same with the bottom or sides. Wherever you look when you start walkin', that's where you go.
Startin' almost with the next cube, though, not all themcube faces are blank. You get, well, flashes of places, or things. Sunsets, green hills, you name it. They ain't exactly real when you look at 'em, more like reflections in a mirror, but you know they are real and that if you go to that cube you'll come out there. Some-a lot-are dark. Sometimes where you're lookin' is the inside of a hill, or maybe up in the air with nothin' below, dependin' on what happened to the spot you're standin' on. That's really the hard part- you don't move all that much for all the walkin' you do through the thing. You can come out just where you went in, but a hundred or a thousand worlds away.
And you can come out some other place, but not without goin' through a switchin' cube. You can always tell a switchin' cube. All the faces but one are dark, and that one has somebody in a room, just a room, sittin' in a chair, lookin' at a whole mess of switches, dials, and screens. If they talk, you can hear 'em, and if you talk, you can be heard, 'cept you sound more'n a little dead and flat.
Lots of them switchers ain't human, neither. At least, they ain't our kind of human. First one we got to was a guy with hair all over his face and a real animallike look; sorta the Wolfman in some fancy uniform. Bill says most of the switchers are from the Type One worlds 'cause many of 'em got better hearin' and can see more stuif than we can and for some reason that's important. They don't speak English, neither, or any other language we know, but thanks to some little gizmo when we talk it's translated to their language and when they talk it's translated to ours.
Keeps things simpler. When 1 think of the number of languages they talk just on our world, then you got to figure how many there must be goin' through here.
"Amitash fridlap!" said the hairy guy. It don't translate till it knows both languages to use, of course.
"Headquarters, please," Bill responded, just like he understood that crap. "Special Agent Markham, world thirteen twenty-nine two stroke seven, with authorized encoded personnel from the same coordinates."
"English, huh?" the switcher grunted. "Okay, I've got you identified on my screen. You're authorized to the
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