W O R L D S  °  ´   ^{i n t r o d u c t i o n}

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Once again he had a presentiment and so he hurried to the front door.
She wanted just to ring. Her fingertip was only a half centimeter in front of the bell-push,
there was opened the heavy, old wooden door with black mountings of metal. It creaked terribly.
Behind the door there was a young bald man with glasses.
He shortly eyeballed her. Then he asked: "So you would like to have a look at my cellar?"
Puzzled the young woman answered: "Uh ... yes. But how do you know this?"
"Mmmmmmh ... it was only an assumption", he answered thoughtfully.
With a hint he asked her in.
"Close the door, please!"
She did this. And while strolling afterwards, she looked around.
"An interesting and beautiful old house. "
"Yes? Do you think so?"
They crossed the labyrinthine corridor of the old villa. On one of the commodes
there was a bowl full of fruits. She took some grapes and ate these pleasurably.
"Delicious!" she thought loudly.
"Pardon?"
"Oh, nothing ..."
Arrived at the other end of the corridor, he opened a gray metal door,
on which stood written: CELLAR
"So ... follow me, please!"
She said nothing. Smiling she followed him.
At the start the cellar room looked like a normal cellar: The walls plastered. The floor flat.
At the blanket electric cable dawns, which were interrupted by a lamp every 20th meters.
A door on the left. A door on the right. On all was written a Roman number. But the further
they followed the tunnel, the more differently looked the walls of it. The finery got more
cracked, older and still scantier. Increased the masonry surfaced here and the tunnel widened
to a barrel vault. Here and there on both sides further aisles branched off. Some were faintly
lighted, others were pitch-dark. At the end of the vault they turned left into a narrow
stairwell. On the right side a  metal handrail. Now they went down several dozens of steps.
A half-landing followed. There was a large steel door with swivel handle, and odd-looking
characters were above a small oval window on the door. Surprised she gazed at the odd-looking
characters and symbols, because she thought to see that one of the signs moved and changed
its shape. Now her smile slowly turned into a surprised facial expression.
"Here it goes along ..." he said to her.
She followed him in silence.
They descended another stairs. At the end of the staircase suddenly no longer was a masonry.
Only the bare rock was there. But the rock looked not dressed. It looked more as if in days
of yore water cleaved trough. Moreover, the walls gleamed strangly, so that you could not
tell exactly what color they were. About a hundred yards further railings were suddenly
on both sides of the tunnel. As she wondered what you need here railing, she already
saw the reason. Left and right the passage dilated to a huge cave. The tunnel was
suddenly no longer a tunnel, but a rock bridge in the midst of a huge cave.
And also here that gleaming was seen on the walls. But here it seemed to her more like
a faint glow. And, indeed. That which she had held for a sparkling and gleaming,
in reality was a glowing. Because nowhere she saw any lights in the cave, and yet
everything seemed like dimly lit.
On the cave floor she suddenly noticed movements. But even before the question leaved her
pretty mouth, he told her, that down there live small, furry and very voracious creatures.
"I call them Critters. Because they slightly look like the creatures from the Critters movies."
With an anxious face she looked at him.
"Don't be afraid! Up here we are in a safe place."
They walked over the rock bridge in the next tunnel. There a weak vibration was to be felt.
The further they went, the stronger it was to be felt. In addition, a very vague hum,
scarcely audible. Now the tunnel dilated again to a huge cave hall. But this was even bigger
than this, in which those strange creatures scurried. Now she also saw, where the vibration
and the hun came from. A gigantic machinery was embedded there in the rock. At least she
supposed that these were machines. It looked made industrially and, nevertheless, at the
same time like a gigantic living creature. Never before she had seen something similar.
On it there were weird armatures, over which various strange light phenomena whizzed.
Sometimes also small flashes danced across.
He asked her: "Would like you to know what this is?"
"Wow ... oh yes, I want to know it!" it slipped out her like startled from a dream.
"Mmmmmh ..." he answered grinning, "... I thought as much."
He took her hand and they slowly went to this gigantic machinery.
The closer she came, the more details she saw. For example, this thing in the middle
resembled a portal. Other things beared resemblance to engines. But in spite of that
it seemed to be a machinery, everything looked anyhow ... living.
"So ... " he started.
"... some years ago, when I purchased by auction this house up there on the mountain,
I had to have a big clearing-out session. Above all the cellar. After I cleared out
and cleaned the cellar, I noticed that there was a draft. But how could be a draft there,
if the cellar have just one entrance? After short searching I realized where the draft
came from. Thereupon I removed the wall and first I found the vault, through which we went.
Then I explored the tunnel system and the cave system.
Really fascinating, right?
In these caverns and caves are living many different creatures and the most of them
are bioluminescent - they are generating light.
So ... some day I found this "machine" ...
I did not spotted yet, how it operates exactly. But meanwhile I know the purpose of it,
I know what I can do with it, and I know how to use it.
So ... down here is a scissure in the space-time continuum. And this machine averts
that this scissure will become bigger. In addition, you can use the scissure to travel
to all the different universes, to all the interspaces and, that's the best, you can
travel through the time. Yes ... but sometimes there are fluctuations in the
space-time continuum. Movements with disagreeable results. Then it impends that the
scissure jumps out of its fixture, which this machinery forms. If this would happen,
it would be over with the world. With our and all other worlds. Imagine, you would
simultaneously be at every place and at every time. And this would not be yet the worst.
But I would not like to meet trouble halfway.
So ... if there are fluctuations, then I always have to readjust this machinery fastly
to regulate the scissure and to tie it to its fixture ..."