Marion Zimmer Bradley Author's note

I've always wanted to write. But not until I discovered the old pulp science-fantasy

magazines, at the age of sixteen, did this general desire become a specific urge to write

science-fantasy adventures. I took a lot of detours on the way. I discovered s-f in its

golden age: the age of Kuttner, C.L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, Ed Hamilton and Jack Vance.

But while I was still collecting rejection slips for my early efforts, the fashion changed.

Adventures on faraway worlds and strange dimensions went out of fashion, and the new look in science-fiction--emphasis

on the _science_--came in. So my first stories were straight science-fiction, and I'm not

trying to put down that kind of story. It has its place. By and large, the kind of science-fiction

which makes tomorrow's headlines as near as this morning's coffee,

has enlarged popular awareness of the modern, miraculous world of science we live in. It

has helped generations of young people feel at ease with a rapidly changing world. But

fashions change, old loves return, and now that Sputniks clutter up the sky with new

and unfamiliar moons, the readers of science-fiction are willing to wait for tomorrow to read tomorrow's

headlines. Once again, I think, there is a place, a wish,

a need and hunger for the wonder and color of the world way out. The world beyond the

stars. The world we _won't_ live to see. That is why I wrote THE DOOR THROUGH SPACE.

MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY End of authors note

CHAPTER ONE Beyond the spaceport gates, the men of the

Kharsa were hunting down a thief. I heard the shrill cries, the pad-padding of feet

in strides just a little too long and loping to be human, raising echoes all down the dark

and dusty streets leading up to the main square. But the square itself lay empty in the crimson

noon of Wolf. Overhead the dim red ember of Phi Coronis, Wolf's old and dying sun, gave

out a pale and heatless light. The pair of Space force guards at the gates,

wearing the black leathers of the Terran Empire, shockers holstered at their belts, were drowsing

under the arched gateway where the star-and-rocket emblem proclaimed the domain of Terra. One

of them, a snub-nosed youngster only a few weeks out from Earth, cocked an inquisitive

ear at the cries and scuffling feet, then jerked his head at me. "Hey, Cargill, you

can talk their lingo. What's going on out there?"

I stepped out past the gateway to listen. There was still no one to be seen in the square.

It lay white and windswept, a barricade of emptiness; to one side the spaceport and the

white skyscraper of the Terran Headquarters, and at the other side, the clutter of low

buildings, the street-shrine, the little spaceport cafe smelling of coffee and _jaco_, and the

dark opening mouths of streets that rambled down into the Kharsa--the old town, the native

quarter. But I was alone in the square with the shrill

cries--closer now, raising echoes from the enclosing walls--and the loping of many feet

down one of the dirty streets. Then I saw him running, dodging, a hail of stones flying

round his head; someone or something small and cloaked and agile. Behind him the still-faceless

mob howled and threw stones. I could not yet understand the cries; but they were out for

blood, and I knew it. I said briefly, "Trouble coming," just before

the mob spilled out into the square. The fleeing dwarf stared about wildly for an instant,

his head jerking from side to side so rapidly that it was impossible to get even a fleeting

impression of his face--human or nonhuman, familiar or bizarre. Then, like a pellet loosed

from its sling, he made straight for the gateway and safety. And behind him the loping mob

yelled and howled and came pouring over half the square.

Just half. Then by that sudden intuition which permeates even the most crazed mob with some

semblance of reason, they came to a ragged halt, heads turning from side to side. I stepped

up on the lower step of the Headquarters building, and looked them over. Most of them were _chaks_,

the furred man-tall nonhumans of the Kharsa, and not the better class. Their fur was unkempt,

their tails naked with filth and disease. Their leather aprons hung in tatters. One

or two in the crowd were humans, the dregs of the Kharsa. But the star-and-rocket emblem

blazoned across the spaceport gates sobered even the wildest blood-lust somewhat; they

milled and shifted uneasily in their half of the square. For a moment I did not see

where their quarry had gone. Then I saw him crouched, not four feet from me, in a patch

of shadow. Simultaneously the mob saw him, huddled just

beyond the gateway, and a howl of frustration and rage went ringing round the square. Someone

threw a stone. It zipped over my head, narrowly missing me, and landed at the feet of the

black-leathered guard. He jerked his head up and gestured with the shocker which had

suddenly come unholstered. The gesture should have been enough.

On Wolf, Terran law has been written in blood and fire and exploding atoms; and the line

is drawn firm and clear. The men of Space force do not interfere in the old town, or

in any of the native cities. But when violence steps over the threshold, passing the blazon

of the star and rocket, punishment is swift and terrible. The threat should have been

enough. Instead a howl of abuse went up from the crowd.

"_Terranan!_" "Son of the Ape!" The Space force guards were shoulder to shoulder behind

me now. The snub-nosed kid, looking slightly pale, called out. "Get inside the gates, Cargill!

If I have to shoot--" The older man motioned him to silence. "Wait. Cargill," he called.

I nodded to show that I heard. "You talk their lingo. Tell them to haul off! Damned if I

want to shoot! "I stepped down and walked into the open square, across the crumbled

white stones, toward the ragged mob. Even with two armed Space force men at my

back, it made my skin crawl, but I flung up my empty hand in token of peace: "Take your

mob out of the square," I shouted in the jargon of the Kharsa. "This territory is held in

compact of peace! Settle your quarrels elsewhere!" There was a little stirring in the crowd.

The shock of being addressed in their own tongue, instead of the Terran Standard which

the Empire has forced on Wolf, held them silent for a minute.

I had learned that long ago: that speaking in any of the languages of Wolf would give

me a minute's advantage. But only a minute. Then one of the mob yelled, "We'll go if you

give'm to us! He's no right to Terran sanctuary!" I walked over to the huddled dwarf, miserably

trying to make himself smaller against the wall. I nudged him with my foot. "Get up.

Who are you?" The hood fell away from his face as he twitched to his feet.

He was trembling violently. In the shadow of the hood I saw a furred face, a quivering

velvety muzzle, and great soft golden eyes which held intelligence and terror. "What

have you done? Can't you talk?" He held out the tray which he had shielded under his cloak,

an ordinary peddler's tray. "Toys. Sell toys. Children. You got'm?"I shook my head and pushed

the creature away, with only a glance at the array of delicately crafted manikins, tiny

animals, prisms and crystal whirligigs. "You'd better get out of here. Scram. Down

that street." I pointed. A voice from the crowd shouted again, and it had a very ugly

sound. "He is a spy of Nebran!" "_Nebran--_" The dwarfish nonhuman gabbled something then

doubled behind me. I saw him dodge, feint in the direction of the gates, then, as the

crowd surged that way, run for the street-shrine across the square, slipping from recess to

recess of the wall. A hail of stones went flying in that direction.

The little toy-seller dodged into the street-shrine. Then there was a hoarse "Ah, aaah!" of terror,

and the crowd edged away, surged backward. The next minute it had begun to melt away,

its entity dissolving into separate creatures, slipping into the side alleys and the dark

streets that disgorged into the square. Within three minutes the square lay empty again in

the pale-crimson noon. The kid in black leather let his breath go

and swore, slipping his shocker into its holster. He stared and demanded profanely, "Where'd

the little fellow go?" "Who knows?" the other shrugged. "Probably sneaked into one of the

alleys. Did you see where he went, Cargill?" I came slowly back to the gateway. To me,

it had seemed that he ducked into the street-shrine and vanished into thin air, but I've lived

on Wolf long enough to know you can't trust your eyes here.

I said so, and the kid swore again, gulping, more upset than he wanted to admit. "Does

this kind of thing happen often?" "All the time," his companion assured him soberly,

with a sidewise wink at me. I didn't return the wink. The kid wouldn't let it drop. "Where

did you learn their lingo, Mr. Cargill?" "I've been on Wolf a long time," I said, spun on

my heel and walked toward Headquarters. I tried not to hear, but their voices followed

me anyhow, discreetly lowered, but not lowered enough.

"Kid, don't you know who he is? That's Cargill of the Secret Service! Six years ago he was

the best man in Intelligence, before--" The voice lowered another decibel, and then there

was the kid's voice asking, shaken, "But what the hell happened to his face?" I should have

been used to it by now. I'd been hearing it, more or less behind my back, for six years.

Well, if my luck held, I'd never hear it again. I strode up the white steps of the skyscraper,

to finish the arrangements that would take me away from Wolf forever. To the other end

of the Empire, to the other end of the galaxy--anywhere, so long as I need not wear my past like a

medallion around my neck, or blazoned and branded on what was left of my ruined face.

End of chapter one CHAPTER TWO

The Terran Empire has set its blazon on four hundred planets circling more than three hundred

suns. But no matter what the color of the sun, the number of moons overhead, or the

geography of the planet, once you step inside a Headquarters building, you are on Earth.

And Earth would be alien to many who called themselves Earthmen, judging by the strangeness

I always felt when I stepped into that marble-and-glass world inside the skyscraper.

I heard the sound of my steps ringing into thin resonance along the marble corridor,

and squinted my eyes, readjusting them painfully to the cold yellowness of the lights. The

Traffic Division was efficiency made insolent, in glass and chrome and polished steel, mirrors

and windows and looming electronic clerical machines. Most of one wall was taken up by

a TV monitor which gave a view of the spaceport; a vast open space lighted with blue-white

mercury vapor lamps, and a chained-down skyscraper of a starship, littered over with swarming

ants. The process crew was getting the big ship ready for skylift tomorrow morning. I

gave it a second and then a third look. I'd be on it when it lifted. Turning away from

the monitored spaceport, I watched myself stride forward in the mirrored surfaces that

were everywhere; a tall man, A lean man, bleached out by years under a

red sun, and deeply scarred on both cheeks and around the mouth. Even after six years

behind a desk, my neat business clothes--suitable for an Earthman with a desk job--didn't fit

quite right, and I still rose unconsciously on the balls of my feet, approximating the

lean stooping walk of a Dry-towner from the Coronis plains.

The clerk behind the sign marked TRANSPORTATION was a little rabbit of a man with a sunlamp

tan, barricaded by a small-sized spaceport of desk, and looking as if he liked being

shut up there. He looked up in civil inquiry. "Can I do something for you?" "My name's Cargill.

Have you a pass for me?" He stared. A free pass aboard a starship is rare except for

professional spacemen, which I obviously wasn't. "Let me check my records," he hedged, and

punched scanning buttons on the glassy surface. Shadows came and went, and I saw myself half-reflected,

a tipsy shadow in a flurry of racing colors. The pattern finally stabilized and the clerk

read off names. "Brill, Cameron ... ah, yes. Cargill, Race Andrew, Department 38, transfer

transportation. Is that you?" I admitted it and he started punching more

buttons when the sound of the name made connection in whatever desk-clerks use for a brain. He

stopped with his hand halfway to the button. "Are you Race Cargill of the Secret Service,

sir? _The_ Race Cargill?" "It's right there," I said, gesturing wearily at the projected

pattern under the glassy surface. "Why, I thought--I mean, everybody took it for granted--that

is, I heard--" "You thought Cargill had been killed a long

time ago because his name never turned up in news dispatches any more?" I grinned sourly,

seeing my image dissolve in blurring shadows, and feeling the long-healed scar on my mouth

draw up to make the grin hideous. "I'm Cargill, all right. I've been up on Floor 38 for six

years, holding down a desk any clerk could handle. You for instance." He gaped.

He was a rabbit of a man who had never stepped out of the safe familiar boundaries of the

Terran Trade City. "You mean _you're_ the man who went to Charin in disguise, and routed

out The Lisse? The man who scouted the Black Ridge and Shainsa? And you've been working

at a desk upstairs all these years? It's--hard to believe, sir." My mouth twitched. It had

been hard for me to believe while I was doing it. "The pass?"

"Right away, sir." He punched buttons and a printed chip of plastic extruded from a

slot on the desk top. "Your fingerprint, please?" He pressed my finger into the still-soft surface

of the plastic, indelibly recording the print; waited a moment for it to harden, then laid

the chip in the slot of a pneumatic tube. I heard it whoosh away. "They'll check your

fingerprint against that when you board the ship.

Sky lift isn't till dawn, but you can go aboard as soon as the process crew finishes with

her." He glanced at the monitor screen, where the swarming crew were still doing inexplicable

things to the immobile spacecraft. "It will be another hour or two. Where are you going,

Mr. Cargill?" "Some planet in the Hyades Cluster. Vainwal, I think, something like that." "What's

it like there?" "How should I know?" I'd never been there either.

I only knew that Vainwal had a red sun, and that the Terran Legate could use a trained

Intelligence officer. And _not_ pin him down to a desk. There was respect, and even envy