minutes' walk broughtthem back to the safe without seeing any more spaces; and the sight ofits black iron bulk filled them with a home-like relief, which in amoment they recognized as a mockery.
"Are we on a sphere of some sort?" Phil asked.
"Probably on an irregular mass of matter," Ione replied, "part ofwhich is Tony's concrete floor, and part of which comes out of someother dimension. This mass of matter is at one end of a long, bar-likeportion of space, the middle of which is pivoted in our world,somewhere in Chicago, and both ends of which are free in hyperspace."
"Then," suggested Phil, "why can't we walk down to the axle on whichit is balanced, and step out into Chicago?"
"Because there isn't any _matter_ for us to walk on. We are not ableto move about in space, in three dimensions, you know. We can only getaround in two dimensions, on the surface of _matter_."
"Well, let's try another exploration trip at right angles to our firstone. After all, these 'spaces' are an interesting show, and I want tosee some more."
They started out in the selected direction, and after a short walk gota glimpse of a vast space dotted with stars and nebulae, with twobright moons sailing overhead. A few steps farther on was a wall ofsolid granite, near enough to touch with their hands. Again, there wasan intensely active mass of weaving bright stripes and loops andcircles, seeming to consist of light only, and making them dizzy in afew seconds. Ione wondered if it might not be something like anorganic molecule on a large scale. Again, odd, queer, indescribableshapes and outlines would appear and disappear, obviouslythree-dimensional sections of multi-dimensional things, cut by space.Once they passed a place of intense cold and terrific noise andescaped destruction or lunacy only because it took them the merestinstant to get past.
They arrived back at the safe, very much fatigued from the strain,their minds woefully confused. Hunger and thirst were beginning tothrust up their little reminders; and for the first time the terrorsof their position, flung out into hyperspace on a small, barren pieceof matter, began to seem real.
* * * * *
After a rest they started out again. As Phil had touched, in kickingit, a creature from another "space," perhaps they might find water andeven food somewhere. They retraced their first steps to the spot wherethey had at first seen water. They found it again and were able to diptheir hands into it. It was warm, and too salty to drink. They came tothe place with the creepers or vines, and Phil reached out and seizedone of them. It was heavy, rubbery, and elastic, stretching readily ashe pulled it.
"These little lurches that we feel must be the snapping back of thespace-puckers as expressed by tensors," Ione remarked. "Every timematter goes in or out of space, the nature of space is altered."
"Well," observed Phil, releasing the vine, "I'd better be careful. Ifone of these things hauls me off here, our last bond with home isgone. I don't want to get lost in some other space."
As he released the vines they snapped back to their places, and theforest of them dimmed a little and reappeared.
They made the round again, dodging cautiously past the point wherethey had previously found the "Tinkertoy" animals, and succeeded ingetting past their snapping teeth. But no promise of food or water didthey find anywhere.
"Looks like we're sunk," observed Phil, as they dropped down on theconcrete to rest, leaning their backs against the safe.
How time counted in hyperspace, neither Phil nor Ione could tell; Philknew that his watch was running. He knew that it was ages and agesthat he sat with his back against the safe, reviewing all the eventsof his put life, and thinking of this ignominious end to a livelycareer! He swore half aloud; then suddenly looked at Ione, ready toapologize. He found her weeping silently.
"I should never have let you come into the building with me," hestammered in confusion at her tears.
"Oh, what do I care what becomes of _me_!" she exclaimed angrily. "Butwho will take care of poor daddy? He doesn't even know when it's timeto eat." And she burst into a fresh fit of weeping.
Phil bent his head in the dumbness of profound despair.
PART V
_The Reversible Equation_
Despair, however, is a luxury. Necessity is a stimulus. With theparchings of thirst and the gnawings of hunger, the two young peopleceased swearing and weeping. Phil got up and paced about and sat downagain. Ione's tears stopped and dried, and she sat and thought.
In the back of her mind there had been forming a vague sort of anidea, which had signalled ahead of itself that there was hope. She satthere and desperately drove her reason to its utmost efforts, to findthat idea and bring it to the surface of consciousness. Hand to handfights with wild animals, battles between ships of the line, viciousduels between ace-aviators in the clouds are tense fights; but theycannot compare in anxious difficulty with the struggle to bring up anunformed idea out of the subconscious mind--especially when one knowsthat the idea is there, and that it must be found to save one's life.
"Ione!" exclaimed Phil. It was the first time he had used the name."What is the matter? You are as tense as a--"
"Ah!" cried Ione, springing up. "Tense! Tensors! I have it!"
Phil gazed at her in alarm. She laughed; at first it was a strainedlaugh, but gradually it melted into her sunny one.
"No, I'm not crazy. I knew there was a way out, and I've been tryingto reason it out. How simple. You remember the little jolts when youpulled at the vines and when you kicked the funny animal? Tensors.Matter and space are so closely interrelated that you can't movematter in or out of space without causing disturbance, recoils, andtremors in space. Those bits of matter were small, and produced only aslight disturbance. It takes about a hundred pounds of lead to swingthis segment--"
"Oho! Got you!" exclaimed Phil. "Not so dumb! The safe!"
"Yes. The safe!" Ione cried.
"Throw it off and watch us swing, eh? What would happen?"
"I might calculate it if I knew the weight of the safe."
"No calculating when I'm around," Phil said. "It couldn't make thingsany worse. Try it first and calculate afterwards."
* * * * *
They got behind the safe and pushed, and their combined strengthagainst it was about as effective as it would have been in moving thePeoples' Gas Building. They sat down again in despair.
"Suppose we _could_ budge it," Ione said. "All we could do would be topush it around, this piece of matter we are on. That wouldn't help.We've got to get it out of space. We can't push it hard enough to dothat. It's got to be shot out suddenly--"
"And we haven't got a gun handy," Phil remarked droopingly.
"Not exactly a gun. A sort of sling--"
Phil leaped to his feet.
"A sling. Why! To be sure! The vines!"
Without another word, both of them got up and ran. They hastened in adirection opposite to the one they had at first taken on their trip ofexploration, and this brought them first past the "space" of theTinkertoy-like animals. As they went by, several of these beastsdarted at them, one of them snapping at Ione's heels. She uttered ascream, causing Phil to turn about and kick right and left among them.He drove them back and escaped from them, rejoining Ione.
"Wait," he said, when they reached the vines. "Remember those woodenballs. If I could get a few to throw at those critters--"
In a moment they were off, and finally arrived at the point from whichthey first saw the balls. Odd it seemed, how they hung suspended inspace, thousands of them, all sizes. Phil reached out and grasped oneabout the size of a baseball and drew it toward himself. He felt adizzy lurch and heard Ione scream.
"Let go!" she screamed again.
When he suddenly realized what was going on, he found himselfprostrate on the ground, with Ione across him, her arms about hisknees.
"Do you realize," she panted, disentangling herself, "that you werepulling yourself out of this space into that one?"
"Thanks!" said Phil. "Never say die. More careful this ti
me, and asmaller one."
* * * * *
He reached out and grasped a ball smaller than a golf-ball, and pulledcarefully, keeping an eye upon Ione. There was resistance to his pull,but gradually the ball came. It seemed heavy. There was a crack as ofbreaking wood, and he fell backward, with a wave of nausea sweepingstrongly over him. He gazed in amazement at a heavy wooden stick thathe held in his hands. The only thing about it that suggested the ballfor which he had reached was its diameter.
"Can't understand it, but appreciate it just the same," he said. Hebroke the stick in two, and had two excellent clubs.
"Simple," Ione replied. "The balls are cross-sections of these treesor sticks which grow in a 'space' at right angles to our own; and weonly see their three-dimensional cross-sections."
"Yes," said Phil. "Cabbages and kings. I'm for you and the party."
A short walk brought them to the "space" of the vines. After testingthe matter out carefully, they found that they could each pull two ofthem at a time. The vines stretched amazingly when they found thosewhose far ends were fixed firmly in the tangle, permitting them tocarry their own ends along with them toward the safe. Phil wound hisvines around his left arm and stuck one club through his belt. Theother he got ready for the wooden animals.
He needed it. The size of the pack was doubled, and he rapped themtill his hand was numb before he and Ione got by. Their vines drew outthin, but held until they were firmly tied about the safe. They wentback after four more.
"I should judge," said Phil, "that by the time we get thirty or forty,the elastic pull will be strong enough to drag the safe back withthem as they snap back home."
* * * * *
Trip after trip they made, fighting the wooden animals with theirclubs each time. Their clothes were torn, and their legs bleeding;their throats were dry and lips cracked. The hard animals seemed tohave a persistent, mechanical ferocity that was undismayed byhammering with the clubs and by repeated repulses. Phil could not seemto hurt them; he merely knocked them away. Finally, on the ninth trip,Ione collapsed when she reached the safe. As she fell, the elasticityof the vines began slowly to drag her back with them. Phil was forcedto sit across her knees while he tied his own vines about the safe.Then he released her and added her vines to the great cable about thesafe.
An overbold hard animal rattled up and snapped at her. Goaded to fury,Phil swung at it with his club and hurled it through the air. He couldfeel the lurch as it left his space and entered another. Then hepushed with his mightiest effort against the safe. It budged, and slida few inches. He used his stick as a lever. It moved again, a littlefaster. Ione struggled to her feet and tried to help, but her effortswere ineffectual.
With one arm about her, Phil pried again under the safe, knowing thatanother trip after vines was out of question. Another animal snappedat their heels. For a while, it was kick backwards, then a shove atthe safe. Each time the safe moved. The sight of its movement revivedIone, so that she was able to push also. Gradually it acquired asteady motion, pulled by the contraction of the vines; its progresssoon became faster and faster. Phil was about to follow it and give itanother push, when Ione drew him back.
Suddenly they experienced a sinking sensation and a fearful vertigo.The snapping animals faded. Ahead of them was the forest of vines, andthey saw the safe hurled into it, crashing, plunging into the tangledmass. The whole view crumpled and moved upwards like a swirl of leavesin a wind, and then vanished with a snap.
* * * * *
They were sick and dizzy, but tremendously curious to see everything.The water, the cubistic cliffs, the vast space full of balls, allcuriously blurred, appeared in succession. There were blank spaces andthen blurred sights of things which they did not recognize, neverhaving seen them before. Then the dizziness and the nausea abated, andahead of them was a vast yellow blue, a huge nebula, and in it weredouble-colored suns and ringed planets with swarms of moons; thisglorious sight remained for many seconds, as they gazed at it inpanting astonishment, half reclining on the concrete; and then itfaded. Again the nausea came on; again the succession of blurredviews. Eventually the myriad spheres, the water with the leviathans,the forest of vines, each succeeding scene grew more blurred. Theirnausea was correspondingly increased, till they were forced to liedown on the ground from illness.
When their giddiness abated, there were blurring views again. Therewas an impression as though the speed of a train were decreasing asone looks out of the window. And how one view held for severalseconds, a vast and wild mountain-range with glaciers and snow peaksby moonlight. When this faded gradually, the scenes began to flick by,more and more rapidly, and grew blurred. Phil and Ione were attackedby nausea until, again, they had to lie down. After that came thefamiliar succession: the wooden animals, the tangle of vines, the vastsea, the spheres, and more blurred scenes. Then came a pause, withthe nebula and the glorious suns swinging into view once again.
"Oh, I understand!" Ione exclaimed; "We're swinging. The safe was soheavy that we swung too violently, too far, and back again--"
"And we keep going till it knocks us out, or till the old cat dies,"added Phil.
* * * * *
However, they found that after a number of repetitions of the sameprogram, their giddiness was becoming less; and instead of lying downin the middle of the swing, they could look about. Then it occurred toPhil to time the interval between the nebula and the mountain-range.When the exact halfway point was determined, and after several moreswings, they could see dimly the windows and machinery of Tony'slaboratory flash by when they passed the middle.
"I don't mean to be a crepe-hanger, but how do you know we will stopat the right point?" Phil asked.
"I don't," replied Ione cheerfully. "But mathematics says so. A freelyoscillating segment of space would naturally come to equilibrium in aposition parallel to the rest of its own space, would it not?"
There came a swing when they did not reach the nebula on the one handand the mountain-range on the other. After that, views dropped offfrom either end of the swing quite rapidly, and before many minutes,they looked into Tony's laboratory a large portion of the time. Formany seconds the laboratory held; then it would gradually fade, andreappear again, only to fade into empty nothingness all around.
"The old cat's dead," Phil finally announced.
They sat and stared about them as the laboratory held steady and nofurther intervening periods of blankness intervened. They both sigheddeeply and slumped over on the ground to rest.
"Bang! bang! bang!"
* * * * *
Some sort of hammering woke them up. They looked about them in a daze.It was broad daylight, and things looked queer in the laboratory.There was a smell of scorched rubber and hot oil. Great loops of wiresagged down from above. Several nondescript heaps stood about thatmight once have been machinery, but now suggested melting snow-men,all fused into heaps. At a table sprawled a queer, misshapen figurethat suggested human origin. Both of its hands were burned to cindersto the elbows. Great holes were scorched into the clothes. But theface was recognizable. Tony's playthings had got him at last.
"Looks like something's happened in here!" Phil gasped, in amazement.
"I'll bet it has, too," Ione exclaimed. "This is the first time itoccurred to me that our recoil from throwing the safe overboard andthe oscillation of our space-segment must have created a tremendouselectrical field in the tetra-ordinate apparatus. The reaction isreversible, you see. The field swings the space-segment, or theswinging of the space-segment creates the field. And the field was toomuch for Tony."
At this point the door fell under the blows of the police, and theraiding squad rushed into the room.
* * * * *
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