He hesitated and then dove through it....
... to a street he had seen once before. The Street of Lepers in Casablanca.
The street was deserted—there were no signs of either Tanner or Avis. He walked slowly down the street, and then there was a rustling noise behind them. He whirled, just in time to see Tanner and Avis disappear into the hoop again.
He ran and plunged in after them. It was going to be difficult, he thought. He would have to leave the vicinity of the hoop to look for them. And once his back was turned, they would be going through the hoop once more.
He caught a quick glimpse of Tanner in the deserted streets of Barcelona, Spain. He almost ran into the two in the empty streets of Shanghai. Madrid, Paris, Stuttgart, Leningrad, Los Angeles, Dallas—the cities flashed by like a deck of cards that was flicked past his eyes. The unending succession of black velvet hoops through which he moved like a man traveling through an infinity of dimensions....
And then the apartment in Bristol and Tanner was there, waiting for him. Simply standing against a table, waiting. Avis was in the far corner, her face frightened and drawn.
Stan paused, eyeing the situation.
"It's been quite a chase, hasn't it?" Tanner asked.
Still the urbane Mr. Tanner, Stan thought.