He shook his head. No inventor would set up a demonstration like this, in an abandoned grocery, without any announcement or literature; nor would there be likely to be eighteen screens, each one showing a motionless and quite impossible scene. No; it was insane, but these garish things were—
Windows.
Into what? Clutching at his frayed emotions, he took a step toward the next frame. His foot crunched on the forgotten fountain pen. For a second he flailed in terror at nothing, and then pitched head foremost over the low ledge.
After a moment the sweet piping spoke again. "You are not hurt. The mental shock will pass shortly."
Andreson said nothing and stared fixedly at the crimson glow underneath his eyelids. Physically he was unhurt, but his sanity was precarious. In his mind, behind the closed lids, it happened over and over again: the long twisting fall, with the great city spinning and growing beneath him in a riot of color, and damp hot air gushing past him, the sudden swooping of the dark figure and the thrum of wings. He tried to pass out again and awaken on the floor of the gallery, but the cold, chiming voice jabbed him awake again.
"This is quite real. You are intelligent enough to accept it—stop thinking like an infant."
The motherly reprimand under such circumstances planted a small germ of amusement somewhere in his mind, and he grasped it frantically and began to laugh, still keeping his eyes clenched shut. Even without seeing its face, he could feel the creature's alarm at his hysteria, but he allowed the shaking to exhaust him into a sort of calmness. Only when his breathing had become controlled and even did he allow himself a second look.
Red sunlight played harshly in upon him through the translucent walls of the small room, and burned sullenly within the crystal bar which crossed above his head. One wall was recessed with what seemed to be bookshelves, and odd articles of furniture stood here and there; but evidently none of them had been designed for humans, for he was lying on the smooth floor, his jacket bunched under his head. The cowled shape still arched over him with Satanic solicitude, black against the glare, and somehow smaller than he had expected it to be. He hoped that that cape would not expand into wings—not yet—for his new calm still stood at the shimmering verge of madness.
"Thank you," he said carefully. "I owe you my life."