Hell's Gate

lidded. The tallest of Salsbury's two guards slapped its hand, knocked the orange stick away and said something in sharp native vacii The new alien shrugged and led them into the room.
        It was a high-ceilinged place full of machinery dotted with lights that bunked and scopes that pulsed, complex and at once interesting. In the center of the floor there was a platform upon which a sled stood, a six foot long slab of glistening metal with four seats bolted to it.
        One of the guards prodded Salsbury in the back with a pistol barrel “Get on cart.” It sounded as if it would take any excuse possible to break Salsbury up a little. He stepped onto the platform as directed, then turned abruptly, three feet above the guard now, and smashed a foot into the vacii's face. The thing toppled backwards, gurgling, the gun out of its hands.
        “Halt!”
        The second guard, the taller of the two, swung the barrel of his needle weapon around. Salsbury launched himself from the platform, came down on the alien before he could fire. He knocked the wind from the creature, managed to grind a knee into its stomach before he got up. Then, when success seemed so close at hand, the heavy-lidded clown who had been chewing on the drug stick brought a chair down on his back, slamming him forward into the cart platform and unconsciousness.
        When he came to this time, he was strapped into one of the chairs on the cart, and the cart was moving. Yet it wasn't moving. It seemed, instead, that things moved around the cart while the vehicle itself remained stationary. There were flickerings of light and darkness, of color, of different shades of white walls. Salsbury snorted, cleared his head, and blinked his eyes until they were no longer watery. When he could see well, it was plain that it was the cart that remained still and the surroundings that flickered, swept past, changed. They seemed to be jolting from one room to another, one identical platform to another without moving.
        He realized, quite suddenly, what was happening. They were teleporting him from one probability line to another, from one bubble to another, heading back toward what the inquisitor had termed One Line. That would be the world where the vacii had invaded from out of the skies, the line from which they had spread to conquer counter-Earths.
        Even as these thoughts pounded through him, he began to think once again of escape. The scenery about them abruptly stopped moving. They were in a gray, metal-walled chamber on another platform. The guards stood, unstrapped him, ushered him down onto a cold metal floor.
        They had arrived.
        In One Line.
        In the vacii starship.
        And if he was going to make one more try for freedom, he did not have long in which to work.
        He was ushered into a steel corridor, farther along to a room apparently used as sleeping quarters, judging from the vast rows of vacii type beds. The guards placed him in a hammock, produced more wire and tied his ankles together, his hands were already bound. They left, then, closing the door. He could hear them talking in their hooting language. Moments later, there was the sound of one pair of broad feet slapping down the corridor. The other guard, it seemed, had been left behind to watch over their human charge.
        Salsbury tensed, strained his hands away from each other, testing the wire yet again. It made deep grooves in his skin, made his fingers swell fat and red. He relaxed, collected his strength, and tried again; this time with everything he had, tapping the super strength and the adrenalin. The wire bit into his wrists and hands, gouging the flesh. Blood welled up and ran down his hands, dripped from his fingertips. For a moment, he was ready to give up, call it quits and spend the rest of his time nursing his wounds. Then he remembered Lynda back in the basement. Very soon, the vacii would use some brain-washing techniques on him and make him reveal how he had gotten into the installation. Then they would go for Lynda. He bit his lower lip and strained even harder against his bonds. There was a wrenching, a snap, and the wire broke in two places.
        Though he wanted to moan and gibber at the pain in his wrists, he tried to keep from making any noise that would draw the attention of the guard beyond the thick door. With blood-slicked fingers, he removed the remainder of the wire and freed his ankles. He stood,