I threaded the maze of rebar and concrete that had been an apartment building. Nothing was left of any value, but bits of graffiti on the wall showed turf markers for ancient gang wars, letters inflated and stylized into logos, then overpainted until any meaning was lost in the noise. Someone had tried to draw shadows on the floor, crude caricatures of the last images of people flashed onto bare concrete by the Skurge, right before they took the daytime sun away from us.

The time was 7:23 PM; my neural implants never left me in doubt, giving me a perfect innate clock, but still there was one portion of my visual overlay that always showed the time when I focussed my attention there. A reassurance that the old symbols still had meaning. Overhead the stars were periodically blacked out by the dark bladelike shapes of the Skurge up in orbit, the light reflected from the moon being the only sunlight they were willing to let us have.

If nothing else tried to kill me tonight, I’d be on time for my appointment. I looked out from the missing wall over to the Reinhardt building, seeking Vancet’s lab and apartment… and light was shining from his window.

That couldn’t possibly be good; Reinhardt’s security was as competent as one might hope for, in present circumstances, but no one left their lights visible through the windows. It was a giant “Come break in and kill me” signal. Was it a trap for me, or was Vancet warning me to stay away? I shot him an inquiry, but no text came in reply.

Well, shit. I’d have to take the high road all the way in. I launched a few drones to get a better view of the window as I returned to the roof where I’d landed the rental flyer. It was a mini-model, wingless with ducted fans and about the size of a motorcycle, which was a lot better for my plan. I flipped the canopy, got in, and let the shock harness settle around me. I punched controls off of auto to manual, retina-printed to authorize the risk, then started the fans.

My drones showed a glimpse of the expanse of Vancet’s lap through the window. I could make out a hunched shape on the left, some blood, the edge of what looked like a brick circle, and a shadowy figure to the right, holding something gunnish. I didn’t want to get the drones any closer and spark an alert, so I told them to circle wide. I gunned the fans, and the flyer shot dirt in a circle as I guided it to the edge of the ruined roof, then punched it forward, building it to an effective but (I hoped) non lethal velocity. I aimed it at the lit window, left of center.

The flyer’s nose cone hit with a crunch and I got squeezed hard by the shock harness. The Nyklene window panel popped free from the frame and shot off to the right side; Shadowdude had to dodge it and wound up dropping his weapon. As the flyer smacked into the far wall and came to an emergency halt, I’d already gotten my arm free of the smothering harness and popped off the canopy. I got my stunner out and gave Shadowdude a faceful as he tried to dodge. The shock tendrils wrapped around his face and dropped him quickly, and I squirmed free from the flyer and secured him, wrapping his limbs with slapcuffs and slipping a Faraday hood over his head. He wouldn’t be waking up for a long while.

“Hey, Lucie?” came a croaking voice from behind me. “I know that parking spaces around here require you to sign a mortgage and provide a blood sample, but that doesn’t make my lab floor an acceptable alternative.”

“Vancet!” I left Mr. Gruesome face down and ran over to help. Vancet was wearing a gray labcoat over a blue shirt, and one leg of his jeans was soaked with blood, while the thigh was bent at a bad angle. A Faraday hood was tied over his face, which explained why he hadn’t texted back earlier. I quickly freed him, and he directed me to the location of his Portadoc.

I opened it, sliced off his pant leg with a knife and set the machine in place. Once the pain suppression field kicked in, I pulled his leg straight at the Portadoc’s direction, and Vancet settled back to let it do its work as I called my drones back to me, popped the Nyklene pane back into the window and swiped it down to perfect black. I’d figure out how to get the flyer out of here a bit later.

“Good to see you again,” I said to Vancet at last. “I like you a lot better when you’re not dead. I think you need a better class of friends.”

“You’re the best friend I could hope for right now,” he said. “Punctual, well supplied, and impressively prepared for trouble.” He sat up as I placed a cushion behind him. “I was hoping to have you here to help me before he arrived, but he showed up early and forced the issue. He was supposedly a potential investor and contributor, but has proved to be a robber under the hood. I’ll call security in a bit later to take him away”

“So what was he planning to steal from you?” I sniffed the air that now filled the apartment; it had a different quality than the regular air outside, richer, almost brighter, and invigorating. “Did you invent a new air freshener?”

He grinned smugly and shook his head. “Lucie, my friend, you are smelling what no one on this side of the Earth has smelled for a long time—fresh air, recycled directly from genuine living plants.”

“So you started another algae farm? Those always stink like pond water, no matter how they treat it…”

“Nope. It’s from… another woooorld,” he said with a spooky dramatic tone of voice. “Go check out that circle you’ve been side-eyeing since you popped in.”

I stepped up to the floor mounted device, with glowing metal pipes inlaid between common firebricks, with nearby fire buckets full of sand, and looked down through the circle into paradise. I saw a sun, enough like ours to send a pain through my heart, shining over rippling water, with trees bearing green leaves and healthy grasses...

I must have gone as slack jawed as a child in a candy store, for I heard Vancet chuckling behind me.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathed quietly. “Where in the world is it?”

“It’s not of this world,” he said, again in the pretentious portentous voice. “I’ve been working with some other tech enclaves remotely for a few years now, and things finally came together for us. This is a dimensional portal to another, real place.”

“And we can smell the air. So we can go to these places. We can actually get out of here and leave the Skurge hanging in the sky and blocking the sun over the US all they want, and start over elsewhere—” My voice started to choke up with all the hope I thought I’d buried forever.

“Right now, all we can do is visit for a while,” said Vancet. “Conservation of energy is involved with permanent mass transfers, and the energy costs get way high really quickly. But we’re working on it, believe me.

“Meanwhile, we can start exploring some of these places temporarily, which is part of why I asked you here this evening. If we can’t manage a permanent exodus yet, we can at least explore and get some ideas, and maybe even some help if we find the right sort of place. Maybe a world that’s dealt with the Skurge and knows how to knock them out of the sky safely.”

I was still staring at that enchanting circle of hope. “How do we see or access these other places?”

“That knob on the pedestal there,” said Vancet, grunting as the Portadoc’s tendrils dug deep and started to repair his shattered femur. “Flip that switch—that’s the safety lock—and turn that knob there.”

I watched the scenes flicker through the well, sunsets and moons over the waters, all normal and peaceful. I could see myself actually lying back on the soft grasses and relaxing under an alien sun. I got a whiff of a deep forest scent that put me in mind of childhood, running through the trees with the dry twigs crackling underfoot.

I turned the knob more, and things started to get weirder. I saw purple skies, planetary rings, a mountain with a deep crater in one side, trees that looked like single celery stalks, but never a sign of sapient life. “Is any of this going to hurt me? What if the air is cyanide or something?” I muttered as multihued light played over my face.

“It's safe,” Vancet said with a drum of his bloody fingers. “Out of the space of possible destinations, narrowed by GAN comparison, I ran a sampler and spectro analysis to double check. We were already limited to the most analogous worlds in terms of survivable environment, and I pruned it down further just to be on the safe side for the initial exploration. There's still thousands of choices.”

I paused. One scene had caught my eye, a dark red desert landscape under a blue-green sky with a giant skull in profile, oddly distorted. I realized it was an image projected on the red sand, something like a shadow... but shadows don't glow with bright light. They receive special awards for not glowing.

But that wasn't the only thing. There was a... not really a man, and ‘he’ was sort of swimming through the air, and there were things bouncing after him like murderous fleas, and they seemed to be taking bites out of him.

I started trying to describe this scene to Vancet, and then the thought burned through me—this was real, and happening now, and I was just standing there and watching someone slowly being hunted down and killed.

The next instant, I leaped headfirst into the circle. I heard Vancet start to shout “LUCE—!” but then my head was in another world's atmosphere. I felt my ears pop and the press of hot air clamping down on me as I left the cool climate of Vancet's apartment. I heard the swooshing of the man-thing's fins and the shrieking of the beasts behind him, sounds that seemed distorted as if the audio had its higher frequencies clipped.

I drew breath, and coughed as I felt something just a little more solid than air enter my mouth; it was like drinking bubble soda, except I was getting it in my nose and lungs. Well, it didn't seem to be killing me. But I realized I could feel it on my skin too, in the wind that rushed past my face and hands. It was slowing my descent; now I knew why that guy was using fins.

I started swimming down to him, but wasn’t making good time until I remembered my drones. I pulled a few out and tethered them to my jacket, and made better speed. Now that I didn’t have to use my hands to swim, I’d be able to aim better.

The manthing was approaching one of those huge skulls, or sculpted skull houses, perhaps to find shelter, and as he passed over those glowing shadows they didn’t fall on him. His shadow was glowing too, bright on the red sand below! It was fascinating, but he didn’t have much time left; those things were about to mob him.

I considered the stunner, but it was the sort of thing effective for one human-sized target, not a pack of rat-piranhas. I sighed and made sure my knife was unclipped, drew my emergency .22 and braced it, and got ready to make a difference. Somewhere.

---

Vratuuk grosted harder, pushing the drindles with desperate strokes as the yattlechaks leapt and rolled and snapped their sharp icicle teeth. Drops of vital fluid trailed behind him from his wounds, floating in the air like a string of black pearls.

Another yattlechak shot ahead of the others and took a bite, ripping off a round chunk of thick tough hide from Vratuuk’s leg. Soon they would start to reach muscle, and that would be the end. He grosted now with fierce energy as his blood trailed behind, heading for a large lumac-cho where it was possible to turn and face them without being surrounded.

But there, above the lumac-cho, there was a ring, and from the ring came a faj, or fajthing! Another foe could only bring disaster. But if Vratuuk turned now, the yattlechaks would flank and feed without mercy. The fajthing came forward, drindleless but yet with speed, and Vratuuk, resigned, felt doomed to ignoble death.

The fajthing had only four limbs, but raised two of them to present a tiny bent rostund. “Pap! Pap!” it spat, and Vratuuk heard the hissing of small stones through the shaish around the yattlechaks. And more paps happened, and the yattlechaks started to die, bursting with little shrieks of surprise!

Vratuuk reached the lumac-cho and spun, casting aside the drindles and wielding two rostunds, each made from sharp lumac-tooth. They did not make pap-noises like that of the fajthing, nor did they project stones, but they were weighty and effective. Vratuuk swung them and connected, spiking two of the yattlechaks as the rest closed in with glittering translucent fangs.

The paps stopped, but then the fajthing was near, and it had another rostund, this one small and shiny, and though its limbs were small, it moved effectively and speared more yattlechaks. They showed fear for the first time. Had they swarmed the fajthing they could have overwhelmed it, but only one of them dared try, and when it bit its teeth broke and it screamed. The fajthing stabbed and struck with the little rostund and opened large gashes in the yattlechaks wherever it struck, and they showed little hunger for its meat. Another fell, and another, and now they fell back, fell away from the fajthing and also Vratuuk!

The yattlechaks tried to regroup, and Vratuuk himself struck the deciding blow. There would be no meal for them today! They skittered apart and fled, seeking a cavern where they could lick their wounds..

Vratuuk sang! Deliverance from death by mysterious aid, what a great song to share back home, and from which to make a legend! Vratuuk danced, and the fajthing danced too, looking down with great fascination at its own lower limbs, below which its shadow danced with it in a bright glowing silhouette. It reached down to take up a scoop of the brilliant sand, which it made to disappear within its raiments.

Vratuuk directed words at the fajthing, who responded in kind, but nothing made sense; they did not share fatuume. But Vratuuk then saw the fajthing staring up at the shining ring from whence it came; the ring flickered and flashed! This was understood, the fajthing wanted to go back to the ring. Vratuuk took up the cast-aside drindles and took hold of the fajthing, who yielded, and with great strokes they grosted up to the ring, higher and higher above the lumac-cho, and the ring shuddered as if to fade, which caused the fajthing to squirm almost free from Vratuuk’s grasp. Vratuuk swung the drindles harder and faster, and at last hurled the twisting fajthing towards the ring—

---

My head popped back through, continuing my scream, and I could almost still feel those alien claws on my waist. I dropped my knife and the .22 and grabbed at the bricks, pulling myself up. I strained at the edge, and got most of the way through, but something was holding my foot; was it that alien? No, he was too far away, hanging in the air and looking at me oddly. Then what was going on?

Vancet was nearby, he’d dragged himself over to the hole with the Portadoc still wrapped around his leg. “Sand bucket! Grab some! Throw it back!” he yelled.

I did as directed and suddenly the stricture was gone. I collapsed as I rolled out of the hole, lying next to him.

“What was that all about?” I panted as my breath came back to me and I tasted genuine Earth air once more, coughing out the last few of those weird invisible bubbles.

“At the end, the mass has to be in balance between the two worlds; conservation of energy,” he said. “We can postpone the balancing for a while with enough energy input but we can’t break it.

“Basically, we sent you and a lungful of your air into that world; we needed to get you and a lungful back. But you apparently brought some extra mass with you—”

“And left some behind,” I said. “Emptied a clip of plastic bullets, and sweated a lot, and one of those rat-piranhas bit my kevlar.”

“Understood. Still, there was an imbalance and we couldn’t close the field until enough mass had crossed in the other direction. That bucket of sand there wasn’t just for fighting the occasional fire.

“Anyway, you got back just in time! I mentioned that we can only visit for a while, you had about 15 minutes. I was about to warn you of that when you jumped in and gave me a heart attack along with my busted leg.”

I looked down through the hole again, and saw the manthing. ‘He’ was waving his weapons with two limbs, and using his fans with two others, and his face was so alien as he looked at me, but I still knew what that look meant, and that was enough.

At that point, the hole blinked one last time and went dark. Relays popped open and parts of Vancet’s setup started to smoke or vent steam, though the pipes and wires continued to glow a dull red among the firebricks.

“So, what’d you bring back?” asked Vancet, breaking me out of my thoughts. But his question brought more joy to me. I reached in my pocket and took out a handful of beautiful dark red sand.

“This sand. Look at this stuff!” I cupped my hand over it. “It’s just red sand in regular light, but it shines in shadow. I don’t know what’s powering it, but we can figure it out. Put a ring of this around a tree, and we can have apples again, and pears, and fresh veggies that haven’t turned to paste in a metal can—”

“Put that stuff right in here,” he said, holding out a thickly lined sample container. “I didn’t measure deadly radiation from that particular world, or it wouldn’t be in the rotation, but let’s not take chances until we test it all out. You should probably ditch your clothes and hit the ‘fresher just to be safe.”

“You’ve been trying to get my pants off for soooo long, and you settled on that cheesy a line?” I teased as I started to unstrap my equipment and head for the ‘fresher cabinet. Soon I had hot water streaming down all over me as the washbox on the side took care of my clothes.

“Towels and a robe are in the cabinet to the left, if you choose not to display your considerable raw animal charms to me,” Vancet said. “Anyway, sales pitch cut short, I need someone to help me research this, and someone who can listen to instructions before smashing through windows and jumping headfirst into portals to alternate dimensions. Is that a skill that you think you can acquire?”

“You are very likely still alive because I acted quickly and used my judgement to adapt available resources in an emergency,” I retorted with raised voice as I let the ‘fresher dry me with blasts of hot air. “But yes, what you have just outlined does interest me, and I want in.”

I didn’t hear exactly what Vancet said in reply, because at that moment the hot air stopped flowing, and with my eyes closed I could feel again that moment under the alien star, dancing amid skulls below an open sky with a happy alien next to me, filling my heart with charity and relief and a curious sort of hope, and a figure bright as my soul dancing under me, made of the purest light.