The other three troopers swaggered up and jerked the man bodily from his chair.
For the first time, Horning saw the sodden man's face.
Again, as in the other worlds, it was his own.
Now, the fat man shook his head blearily, as if trying to blink the haze of drink from his eyes.
The leader of the four uniformed men slapped him savagely, first on one side of the face and then the other.
Horning's coexisting self sagged to his knees.
The leader of the men in purple kicked him in the stomach.
The men in purple laughed and threw their prisoner down at full length on the floor with all their might. Then, catching him by the feet, they dragged him bodily out of both drinking house and range of the scanning scope's screen.
Shuddering, Horning stared off across the shining silver plain. Of a sudden he had no heart for searching through other worlds; knew that he would not have till time had dimmed the memory of this day.
It left him no choice but to go back to his own plane ... back to Myrtle.
And if she'd found his note.... He shook his head in wry dismay.
But he had no other course left open. Carefully, he turned the transdimensional registration unit's calibrated dials back to zero ... manipulated the controls.
The light-loop's tubes blazed and pulsated on the scanner screen, so bright they obscured everything beyond. The frame materialized before him, rising like a shimmering, translucent gateway amid the empty vastness of the silver plain.
Heavy-footed, heavy-hearted, Horning stepped through it, back to the basement laboratory that lay in his own world.
And there was Myrtle. Head thrust forward, one thick arm belligerently akimbo, she stood by the desk, reading Horning's note.
Myrtle's glance flicked to him. Her eyes, black and beady, drew to fury-glinting, fat-rimmed slits.
Horning stumbled from the ramp, fumbling at the transit unit's harness.
But Myrtle was upon him in three walloping strides--clutching his shirt-front, shoving her face close to his. An aura of cheap perfume, stale face powder, clothes that could have done with more frequent laundering, washed over Horning in unpleasant waves.
She spat the word with such venom that her face shook.
Horning tried to speak, but no words came.