The Time Trap by Henry Kuttner

and it would be bolt, sprint, race with temples throbbing and sweat running into their eyes, till the two would be forced to fling themselves down and rest while they gasped for breath. They went zigzagging and plunging through a weird and fantastic array of alien worlds and scenes. Mason could not help flinching when a great tree or wall of ice would loom in his path, though he knew the thing was an impalpable phantom.
    Then, too, there was the ever-present fear that they would plunge off the edge of the tower. What saved them was nearly their doom, for as they went racing through a curiously regular rank of thin columns, like bamboo, that stretched up to a far whiteness that was either the sky or an incredibly lofty roof, they burst suddenly into the world of living vegetation. Mason went rushing through a swaying red tree. The rasping sound of pursuit was loud in his ears—and his feet went from under him.
    Letting go of Alasa’s hand, he fell heavily on his side, sliding down till his hips were on the polished slide that led down into the interior of the tower and the lair of the ant-monster. He kept on sliding.
    Desperately, Mason gave a frantic twist and squirm that nearly broke his back; he felt Alasa’s hands pulling him to safety. The girl’s white body gleamed through the flaring cloak. Somehow, Mason scrambled to his feet, his breath a flaming agony within his lungs.
    The monster was nearly on them. Remembering Murdach’s weapon, Mason clawed it out, aimed it. A thin beam sprang at the giant ant. Light crawled weirdly over the frightful head.
    And the thing—died! Without a sound it dropped, though its impetus carried it forward till it slid over the brink of the abyss and vanished from sight. No sound came from below.
    Trembling a little, Mason replaced the weapon. “Come on, Alasa,” he said shakily. “We’ve got to find the ship. There may be more of those devils around.”
    But it was not easy to locate the vessel. The two played a weird game of blind-man’s-buff there on the top of the tower, hurrying through mirages, some they recognized, others totally unfamiliar. Some were horrible and others pleasant enough.
    The worst was hurrying over a black, gelatinous substance that heaved restlessly underfoot, like the hide of some Cyclopean monster. It might have been, for all he knew, Mason thought. The black, heaving skin seemed to stretch for miles around, and sometimes the two were buried to their hips in it.
    Again they were hurrying across a field of hard, frozen brown earth, with a phenomenally beautiful night sky overhead, studded with constellations and gleaming planets, entirely unfamiliar. A great comet glowed in its white glory among the stars. Then there was a surface of ice or glass, and looking down Mason could see, far below, vague and indistinct figures that seemed entirely inhuman, as far as he could make out through the cloudy crystalline substance.
    They staggered through a world of blazing fire, flinching as heatless tongues of flame licked at them. They reeled across a vast desert of sand that crawled and billowed beneath them, stirring with a monstrous embryonic life.
    But at last they found the ship. With heartfelt relief Mason followed Alasa aboard and closed the door, sent the vessel lancing up. The girl sank down in a limp heap, her breasts heaving tumultuously.
    At a safe distance above the tower Mason stopped the ship, hovering there, while he pondered. Were Erech and Murdach captive within the huge eidolon? Or—
    A cry from Alasa made him turn. She was pointing.
    “Look! It’s—”
    “Erech!” Mason finished excitedly. “And Murdach!”
    Crawling across the gray plain, almost at the foot of the tower now, was one of the giant ants, carrying in its claws two limp figures that were, even at the distance, unmistakably human. His hand closing on the weapon in his pocket, Mason sent the ship flashing down.
    But—the thought came—could he use the ray projector on the