VIEWPOINT.
BY RANDALL GARRETT
Illustrated by Bernklau
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding ScienceFiction January 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidencethat the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
A fearsome thing is a thing you're afraid of—and it has nothingwhatever to do with whether others are afraid, nor with whether itis in fact dangerous. It's your view of the matter that counts!
There was a dizzy, sickening whirl of mental blackness—not trueblackness, but a mind-enveloping darkness that was filled with themulti-colored little sparks of thoughts and memories that scatteredthrough the darkness like tiny glowing mice, fleeing from somethingunknown, fleeing outwards and away toward a somewhere that was equallyunknown; scurrying, moving, changing—each half recognizable as itpassed, but leaving only a vague impression behind.
Memories were shattered into their component data bits in that maelstromof not-quite-darkness, and scattered throughout infinity and eternity.Then the pseudo-dark stopped its violent motion and became still, nolonger scattering the fleeing memories, but merely blanketing them. Andslowly—ever so slowly—the powerful cohesive forces that existedbetween the data-bits began pulling them back together again as thenot-blackness faded. The associative powers of the mind began puttingthe frightened little things together as they drifted back in from vastdistances, trying to fit them together again in an ordered whole. Like avast jigsaw puzzle in five dimensions, little clots and patches formedas the bits were snuggled into place here and there.
The process was far from complete when Broom regained consciousness.
Broom sat up abruptly and looked around him. The room was totallyunfamiliar. For a moment, that seemed perfectly understandable. Whyshouldn't the room look odd, after he had gone through—
What?
He rubbed his head and looked around more carefully. It was not justthat the room itself was unfamiliar as a whole; the effect was greaterthan that. It was not the first time in his life he had regainedconsciousness in unfamiliar surroundings, but always before he had beenaware that only the pattern was different, not the details.
He sat there on the floor and took stock of himself and hissurroundings.
He was a big man—six feet tall when he stood up, and proportionatelyheavy, a big-boned frame covered with hard, well-trained muscles. Hishair and beard were a dark blond, and rather shaggy because of the timehe'd spent in prison.
Prison!
Yes, he'd been in prison. The rough clothing he was wearing wascertainly nothing like the type of dress he was used to.
He tried to force his memory to give him the information he was lookingfor, but it wouldn't come. A face flickered in his mind for a moment,and a name. Contarini. He seemed to remember a startled look on theItalian's face, but he could neither remember the reason for it nor whenit had been. But it would come back; he was sure of that.
Meanwhile, where the devil was he?
From where he was sitting, he could see that the room was fairly large,but not extraordinarily so. A door in one wall led into another room ofabout the same size. But they were like no other rooms he had ever seenbefore. He looked down at the floor. It was soft, almost as soft as abed, covered with a thick, even, resilient layer of fine materia