Hell's Gate

have ever encountered anyone from an alternate probability. To speak with, at least.”
        “Who-” Salsbury began, his tongue a moth-eaten blanket rolled up inside his mouth.
        “No talk for the moment. The vacii will come in search of you. We must go to the lower levels which they do not know of.”
        “Okay,” Vic said, taking a few tentative steps.
        “Do you wish to be carried?” the newcomer asked.
        “No.” He could see that he was still smaller than the half-men perhaps only seven feet tall, but the half-men obeyed him. “I'll make it on my own. You aren't as large as these brutes.” Then he walked five feet and collapsed.
        “Much of their extra size is wasted in fat and bones,” the newcomer said. He bent over Salsbury, picked him up as if he weighed in at slightly under three pounds, and started out of the room. “We are simply more compact, but just as strong as they.”
        There were others of the more refined strain of gorilla men. Salsbury noticed, his head hanging down over his rescuer's shoulder, brilliant showers of fireflies exploding on the surface of his eyes, obscuring his view of the new men. He could see, however, that they were dressed, unlike the half-men who had been torturing him. They wore high skin boots that came to their square, chiseled knees, and tight short pants of coarse material. They carried bows, quivers of arrows, and a sheathed knife each. The one who was carrying Victor had entrusted his weapons to one of his comrades. The others, however, were prepared for combat and maintained a constant, tense vigil to all sides, their weapons armed, whether for vacii or for the more daring and surly half-men, he did not know.
        Then they were moving. He couldn't see anything for the hobbling and swaying of his head. All he could make out was that they were leaving the naked half-men behind and were going down, down, farther down each minute.
        There was another firefly eruption in his head. Hundreds and thousands of flickering green lights. This time, he settled back and allowed them to swarm in on him as if they were hungry, blood-seeking mosquitoes. They blotted everything out and dazzled him with their brilliance. Then, strangely, the lights disappeared, and there was only a soft, murmuring bandage of nothingness about him.
        Later, he came awake to find his rescuer holding his head up and rubbing the crushed petals of a rich purple flower beneath his nose. The odor made him gag, but it did bring him awake as was planned. He shook his head to make the stranger take the smelling salts away, then leaned back and realized he was in a chair! It was a well made piece of furniture, comfortable with cushions of dark fabric, and seemed to be stuffed with feathers or fur of some sort. This was the first sign of the artifacts of moderately civilized people, aside from the weapons and clothes he had already noticed in his groggy state. These people were more than slightly advanced above the naked half-men who had been trying to kill him.
        “Perhaps I should have let you sleep,” the rescuer said, looking down on Salsbury with concern. “But this is a very important thing. I think, perhaps, it is our chance. We must make use of it as swiftly as possible. But if you feel like you must rest-”
        “I'm okay,” Salsbury said.
        “Good.” The creature smiled at others nearby, giving Victor a moment to survey the room. It was still a cave. They were farther down in the earth than before, for the walls were more solid, more of a piece, and there were no loose rocks. Despite the fact it was a cave, it was a relactively pleasant place. It was kept scrupulously clean. One of the walls was decorated with a mural that showed that artistic concepts here were modern, enlightened, far beyond all other cave art. Another wall was carved with shelves which held other pieces of work, mostly stone and wood sculpture, though one held a thatched strawpiece resembling a kneeling woman. Salsbury saw at once that the women of these half-men-or nine-tenths men- were closer his own idea of femininity than those of the naked half-men had been. Finally, he took in the fact that there were three other creatures seated in the room, all on chairs, some drinking out of wooden tumblers, others just biding their time.
        “I'm Moog,” his rescuer said, turning back to him. “You are?”
        “Vic.”
        “It is a new name for