The Shadow Girl by Ray Cummings

Alan and I, in the tower with Lea and San, were simultaneously heading for the same Time-place to which Turber now took Nanette. We did not know that Turber stopped in 1779. It would have availed us nothing. But we did know his final destination. The knowledge was poor consolation. Turber was practically impregnable in that giant city. Old Powl had said it; we knew that Lea and San thought so. All our efforts had been to keep Turber from taking Nanette there. It was his final strong-hold.

As our tower sped forward in Time from the forests of little New Amsterdam, Alan and I found ourselves again with the barrier of language between us and Lea and San. Lea was beginning to talk a little. Her ability to learn was far in excess of what was normal to Alan and me. Already she seemed to understand much of what we said. But it was still an awkward barrier.

We made them understand that we would stop in the giant city. San would land us there at a time similar to Turber's arrival.

Alan said: "We'll go to the authorities, Ed. They will be intelligent, scientific people. They'll understand this tower -- it won't be magic to them. We'll make them organize an expedition against Turber. Rescue Nanette -- get her back safely."

My heart was heavy. It was all the rational plan we could make. But that giant city! What new conditions with which we would have to cope! A new civilization, all strange to us.

Lea said: "Yes. That best. " She indicated 2445 A. D. on the dial. "You and Alan there. San and I got to -- "

She indicated the year 5000 A. D. Alan knew what she meant. She and San would make a hurried trip on to that Time when the city was in ruins, and would search in the ruins for that super-powerful weapon. They would get it and bring it back to us.

Lea added: "Tell them -- not yield to Turber. Weapon coming -- Lea and San bring it in tower."

We sped forward -- a trip of much less than an hour. The Indian forests melted away. The city flowed up around the tower. Central Park was here. We saw the city flow over it. We saw huge streets about us. Then a roof over us, with our tower set in a monstrous metal street.

Lea shook our hands. "Good-by, Alan -- until we come with weapon."

The tower lurched to a halt. A surge of noises flooded in through the windows. The noise of the huge city. And there were shouts of human voices. And dazzling lights everywhere. Turber was here in this same city, now, with Nanette. We were to make our last desperate play against Turber here.

San flung the door open. Alan and I leaped from the tower steps. Behind us, the tower flashed into a phantom and was gone.

The city street was a roaring torrent of voices, human and electrical; a confusion of strange sounds and stranger sights. The street was solid metal. Traffic levels rose in tiers one above the other. Vehicles were passing: scurrying cars on wheels; a monorail hanging from a trellis, with dangling cars showing as a string of lights high overhead. And a great translucent spread of roof like glass above it all.

A blare of blue and yellow lights. A moving sidewalk on one of the lower tiers was jammed with human figures. They craned down to see the commotion we were causing.

The empty street space showed a mangled vehicle which had evidently been too close when the tower materialized. Twisted, blackened metal; and there were three human bodies lying dead in the street.

"Stand still, Ed! Let them take us!"

I clung to Alan. A crowd of strangely garbed figures rushed at us. But they did not approach too close; a ring of them, milling about; shouting -- but too fearful to seize us.

We stood confused. Out of a million new impressions, my mind grasped so few! Mechanisms everywhere; gleaming mirrors with moving images; traffic lights and signals; clanking, clattering mechanisms; movement everywhere.

I saw fifty feet up the tiers of sidewalks, a street of open-faced shops with merchandise on display. The narrow viaducts were a lacework of metal overhead. The city roof above them glowed with light -- I think it was daytime.

Alan said: "There ought to be an official."