A man crouched there--ragged, bone-gaunt, grey as the shattered walls at his back. He clutched a club in one claw-like hand, and the strain of utter panic, despair, stood out in every taut, harsh-drawn line.
Before the man, hemming him in, ranged a dozen great, six-legged, wolfish beasts of a fearsome genus Horning had never seen before. Snarling, slavering, they crowded in closer and closer, huge fangs bared.
With a chill of horror, Horning flipped the magnifier across the scanning scope's screen.
The beleagured man's face leaped up at him, sharp and clear.
For the other's fear-blanched face was his face, too ... the face of another coexisting self, doomed to live and die in this grey, desolate world.
Even as Horning cried out, one of the great wolf-things sprang.
The man jerked back and lashed out with his club. The beast fell short, battered down.
But in the same instant, another of the creatures lunged, from the other side. Its hideous, slashing fangs closed on the man's club arm.
The impact bore the man to his knees. Before he could recover, a third of the wolf-things was at his throat. Blood gushed, a sharp scarlet accent in a world of grey.
Horning squeezed his eyes tight shut in a frenzied effort to shut out the horror. Spasmodically, he spun the transdimensional registration unit's dials.
Again there was a flicker of light. Hands still atremble, Horning focussed on it.
This time, the scene was laid in what appeared to be a cheap cafe. A throng of loungers lined the bar set against the far wall. But their shabby clothes were of a cut and material unknown to Horning. The grimed, poorly-executed murals struck a note of jangling discord, as if even the arts here were keyed to a different plane.
In the foreground, a man gone flabby with fat slumped on his arms at a table, a bottle half full of greenish liquor before him.
A sudden commotion stirred at the far end of the room. The loungers milled and drew back.
Four men in sack-like purple uniforms pushed through the crowd with cold arrogance. Their features had an oriental cast, and they carried drawn swords of strange design.
The first of the quartet came abreast the table in the foreground. Stepping aside, he gestured contemptuously towards the man slumped there.