Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [10]
It was a colorful hell, in a sickly sort of way, a badly shaken Walker decided.
Trembling, he leaned slightly on one of the flexible tent poles for support. It felt real and familiar in his grasp, white and cool and plasticky. He inhaled deeply, desperately. The air was still sweet. When he kicked lightly at the ground underfoot, gravel rattled. In the trees off to his right, the jay and the chipmunk had resolved their differences and gone their separate ways. All seemed well, and healthy, and normal.
Except for one corner of reality that had gone missing.
A window into his world, he thought. They’ve somehow opened a window into the world that enabled them to look in on him. Unconsciously, he found himself backing up until a cold damp began to chill his ankles. Looking down, he saw that he had retreated all the way into the lake shallows. Stepping out of the water, he turned to look across the glistening expanse to the far shore and the slope of the snow-crowned mountain that towered above it. The longer he looked, the less sure he was of its reality. There was a hint of curious foreshortening, of a fakery of space, that whispered of someone, or something, playing hide-the-slipper with his optic nerves.
Setting out determinedly, he headed for the dirt track where his 4X4 had been parked. If they had removed it, what else of his had they tampered with? No matter. If necessary, he could walk into Bug Jump. It was all downhill from the lake. Let them track and follow him with their window, if that was what they wanted. Maybe they had taken his SUV in order to study its primitive mechanical schematics.
On the other side of the road, he got a shock. One that was literal as well as mental. The slight electric charge caused him to draw back in surprise. Tentatively, he reached out. His nerves were jarred again; slightly more forcefully this time. Beyond the invisible barrier, the road seemed to stretch out tantalizingly toward nearby forest. But no matter how high he reached or how low he crouched, he could not advance beyond the spot marked by the unseen electrical field.
It was the same no matter which direction he, with an increasing sense of panic and urgency, took. North or south, left or right, after traversing forty feet of dirt and gravel, he inevitably encountered a similar restraining electric charge. Despite the cold, he stripped off his clothes and waded out into the lake. Sure enough, after walking, wading, and eventually swimming some forty feet away from shore, he found himself driven back by the all-encircling, invisible field. Lost in mounting fear, he had neglected to consider what might happen to him if he made contact with a strong electrical field while simultaneously immersed in water. But it did not matter. The water did not lethally amplify the effects of the field. Even though he was submerged up to his neck in the little corner of lake, the jolt to his nervous system was no greater than what he had experienced while standing on dry land.
Swimming back, he staggered out of the icy water and returned to the tent to get a towel. Emerging while drying himself, he discovered that where previously there had been one, there were now two of the aliens standing in the corridor and staring at him. He was not sure whether he wanted to scream or cry.
Forgetting his nakedness, still wiping at himself with the towel, he walked around the tent to confront them.
“Goddammit, who are you? What have you done to me? Where is this place?”
The last thing he expected was an answer.
The slightly larger of the pair, who like its companion professed utter disinterest