Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Comet, July 1941. Extensive research didnot uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publicationwas renewed.
_The Professor's head, suspended above the body, glared about. The mouth moved rapidly_--]
The 4-D DOODLER
by GRAPH WALDEYER
* * * * *
"Do you believe, Professor Gault, that this four dimensionalplane contains life--intelligent life?"
At the question, Gault laughed shortly. "You have been readingpseudo-science, Dr. Pillbot," he twitted. "I realize that as apsychiatrist, you are interested in minds, in living beings,rather than in dimensional planes. But I fear you will find nominds to study in the fourth dimension. There aren't any there!"
Professor Gault paused, peered from beneath bushy white brows outover the laboratory. To his near sighted eyes the blurred figureof Harper, his young assistant, seemed busily at work over hismathematical charts. Gault hoped sourly that the young man wasactually working and not just drawing more of his absurd,senseless designs amidst the mathematical computations....
"Your proof," Dr. Pillbot broke into his thoughts insistently,"is purely negative, Professor! How can you know there are nobeings in the fourth dimension, unless you actually enter thisrealm, to see for yourself?"
Professor Gault stared at the fat, puffy face of his visitor, andsnorted loudly.
"I am afraid, Pillbot, you do not comprehend the impossibility ofsuch a passage. We can not possibly break from the confines ofour three dimensional world. Here, let me explain by a simpleillustration."
Gault took up a book, held it so that a shadow fell onto thesurface of the desk.
"That shadow," he said, "is two dimensional, has length andbreadth, but no thickness. Now in order to enter the thirddimension, our plane, the shadow would have to bulge out in someway, into the dimension of thickness an obvious impossibility.Similarly, we can not enter the fourth dimension. Do you see?"
"No!" retorted Pillbot with some heat. "In the first place, weare not two dimensional shadows, and--why, what is the matter?"
Professor Gault's lanky form had stiffened, his near sighted eyesglaring out over the laboratory to the rear of Pillbot. Thepsychiatrist wheeled around, followed his host's gaze.
It was Harper. That young man's antics drew an amazed grunt fromPillbot. He was describing peculiar motions in the air with hispencil. Circles, whorls, angles, abrupt jabs forward. He bentover the paper on the desk, made a few sweeps of the pencil, thenthe pencil rose again into the air to describe more erraticmotions. Harper himself seemed in a trance.
Suddenly Pillbot gave a stifled gasp. It seemed to him thatHarper's arm vanished at the elbow as it stabbed forward, thenreappeared. Once again the phenomenon happened.
Pillbot blinked rapidly, rubbed his eyes. It must have beenillusion, he decided. It was too ... unlikely....
"Harper!" Gault's voice was like the snapping of a steel trap.
Startled, Harper came to with a jerk. Seeing he was beingwatched, he flushed redly, then bent over his charts again. Anapologetic murmur floated from his desk.
"What was he doing?" Pillbot asked puzzledly.
"Doodling!" Gault spat out the word disgustedly.
"Doodling?" echoed the psychiatrist. "Why that is a slang term weuse in psychiatry, to describe the absent-minded scrawls anddesigns people make while their attention is elsewhere occupied.An overflow of the unconscious mind, we call it. Many famouspeople are 'doodlers.' Their doodles often are a sign of specialability--"
"Exactly!" snapped Gault. "It shows a special ability to wastetime. And Harper has become worse since I hired him to do some ofmy mathematical work. Some influence in this laboratory--I blushto confess--seems to bring it on. 'Four dimensional doodling' wecall it, because, as you saw, he doesn't confine it to thesurface of the paper!"
Pillbot looked startled. "By jove," he cried. "I believe you'vehit on something new to psychiatry. This young man may have someunknown faculty of mind--an instinctive perception of the fourthdimension. Just as some people have an unerring sense ofdirection, so perhaps Harper has a sense of--of a fourthdirection--the fourth dimension! I should like to examine some ofhis 'doodles'."
Harper looked up in alarm as his crusty tempered employerappeared, followed by the stout figure of Pillbot. He rose andstood aside unassumingly, as Pillbot bent over the scrawls on hischarts, clucking interestedly.
Harper flickered a worried glance over to the corner. He hopedthey wouldn't notice his stress-analyzing clay model standingthere. It looked like a futurist's nightmare, with angles, curvesand knobs stuck out at all angles. Professor Gault might notunderstand....
* * * * *
For one of his retiring temperament, Harper was aiming high.There was a standing award of $50,000 for the lucky mathematicianwho would solve the mystery of the "stress-barrier" encounteredby skyscrapers as they were built up toward the 150 story mark.At this height, they encountered stress and strains whichmathematical computations and engineering designs had been unableto solve. Harper believed the "stress-barrier" was due to anundetected space-bending close to the earth's surface, a bendingof space greater than ever provided for in the prediction ofEinstein. And if he was right, and could win that award, thenthere might be wedding bells, and a little bungalow withJudith....
Harper's greatest fear was that he would do something to annoyGault into firing him, thus depriving him of the privilege ofusing the mathematical charts and computing machines available inthe laboratory. Right now, he hoped Gault wouldn't notice thatstatue in the corner--
"What's _that_!"
Harper's heart leaped. The Professor was glaring at the statue,as though it were something the cat brought in.
Pillbot looked up from examination of the "doodles" and followedGault over to the futuristic statuary.
As Gault made strangled noises, Pillbot stared interestedly."Why--its like some of the designs in his doodling," heexclaimed.
"And made with some of my best modeling clay for reproducinggeometric solids!" rasped Gault. He wheeled upon Harper.
"Get that thing out of here! I won't stand for such rot in thislaboratory. Throw it into the hall for the janitor!"
"Ye-yessir," said Harper, gulping. He took hold of the statue,pulled at it.
"It--it won't budge," he exclaimed amazedly.
"Eh? Won't move? It's not heavy, is it?" demanded the Professor.
"No--about thirty pounds, but it wont move!"
Gault took hold of one of the angles of the thing, jerked at itsavagely. He gave it up with an oath, returned to Harper's deskmuttering.
Harper suddenly noticed the top portion of the statue. It didn'tseem to be all there! He was positive there had been anothersection on top, shooting off at an angle, representing a problemin tangential stress. What had happened to that top section?
He would figure that out later, when the occasion was morepropitious. Right now, he realized that only the presence ofDr. Pillbot prevented Gault from firing him. He cast an apprehensiveglance toward his employer.
With trepidation, he saw Gault reach for something projectingfrom behind a bench. Gault pulled it out, held it dangling beforehim. A strangled exclamation of wrath came from him. His longnose pointed accusingly toward Harper, like a finger pointing outa criminal.
"I was afraid of that!" he grated. "Cutting paper dolls!" Gaultwas holding up a large paper cutout of a human figure--a long,rangy man.
"This is the last s
traw," Gault went on, his voice rising. "Ihave stood enough--"
"It--it wasn't me, sir," Harper cried quickly, with visions ofhis job and $50,000 vanishing. "It was your ten year old nephew,Rudolph, when he was here yesterday. He cut it out, said itlooked like--like his uncle--"
Harper stopped as Gault seemed about to explode. Then themathematician subsided, a malicious expression crept over hisface.
"H-m-m," he said. "Might be just what I need to explain things toDr. Pillbot."
"I shall take this matter before the Psychiatric Society,"Pillbot was saying excitedly. "Undoubtedly you have some strangefaculty--an instinctive perception of four dimensional laws ...what was that, Professor?"
"I said if you will step over to this desk I will explain to youin elementary terms--very elementary and easy to understand--whyyou will never be able to study four dimensional beings--_if_ anyexist!" Gault's voice was tinged with sarcasm.
Pillbot came over, followed by Harper, who was interested in anyexplanations about the fourth dimension--even elementary ones....
Gault, with a glint in his eye, pressed the paper figure flatlyon the surface of Harper's desk.
"This paper man, we will say, represents a two dimensionalcreature. We lay him flatly against the desk, which representshis world--Flatland, we mathematicians call it. Mr. Flatlandercan't see into our world. He can see only along the flat plane ofhis own world. To see us, for instance, he would have to look_up_, which is the third dimension, a direction inconceivable tohim. Now, Doctor, are you beginning to understand why we cannever see four dimensional beings?"
Pillbot frowned thoughtfully, then looked up. "And what about theviewpoint of the four dimensioners themselves--_what wouldprevent them from seeing us_?"
Harper hardly heard the Professor's snort of disgust. This twodimensional cutout in "Flatland" fascinated him. An idea occurredto him. Now, just supposing the....
* * * * *
As Gault and Pillbot argued, Harper grasped the paper cutout, andbent it, "jacknifed" it, creasing it firmly in the middle. Thenhe raised the upper half so that it rose vertically from thedesk, while the lower half was still pressed flatly against thedesk surface.
"Now," he murmured to himself, "the Flatlander would appear tohis fellows to have vanished from the waist up, because from thewaist up he is bent into the third dimension ... so far as theyare concerned...."
"E-e-e-e-e!"
At the wavering scream, Harper looked up quickly. Pillbot wasstaring frozenly in front of him, toward the floor. Harperfollowed his glance--and saw it.
Professor Gault had vanished from the waist up.
His lower body still stood before Pillbot, swaying slightly, butthe upper body was unconditionally missing. From the large feetplanted solidly on the floor, long legs rose majestically,terminating in slim, angular hips--and from thence vanishedabruptly into nothingness. It was as though the upper body hadbeen sheared away, neatly and precisely, at the waist.
Pillbot stared from the visible portion of Gault to slack-jawedHarper and back again, sweat splashing from his puffy face.
"Why, why really my dear fellow," he quavered, addressing thehalf-figure. "This--this is a bit rude of you, vanishing in themidst of my sentence. I--I trust you will--ah, return at once!"Then, as the full import of the phenomenon penetrated to hisunderstanding, his eyes became glazed and he backed away.
The portion of Professor Gault addressed failed to give anyindication it had heard the remonstrance. Slowly, the legs beganto feel their way, like a blind man, about the floor.
Harper stared wildly, white showing around his pale blue irises.
"No!" he bleated. "The Professor didn't do it himself--I causedit to happen. I bent the paper cutout, and--and Something saw medo it, and imitated me by bending the Professor into the fourthdimension!" Harper moaned faintly, wringing his hands.
Pillbot at the moment got little satisfaction from thisdemonstration of his point about four dimensional life. Heglanced fearfully at the half-figure.
"You--you mean to say," he quailed, "that we are under scrutinyby some Being of the fourth dimension?"
"That's it," replied Harper with a whinny. "I--I know it, I canfeel it. It became aware of our three dimensional life in someway, and its attention is now concentrated on the laboratory!" Hewrung his hands. "I just know something else terrible is going tohappen!" He backed away quickly as the occupied pair of pantsmoved toward him.
His retreat was halted by his desk, upon which reposed two largeCalifornia oranges, an inevitable accompaniment to Harper'slunch. To him, orange juice was a potent, revivifying drink. Nowhe automatically reached for one of the oranges, as a more hardyindividual might reach for a whisky and soda in a moment ofmental shock.
His eyes wide on the shuffling approach of Gault's underpinnings,Harper nervously dug sharp fingernails into the orange, tore offlarge chunks of skin.
A sudden blur seen from the corner of his eyes pulled his gazeback to the desk. The other orange had vanished.
_Phwup_!
It dropped to the floor before Harper, but now it was a squashymess, the insides standing out like petals, the juice runningfrom it.
The other orange slipped from Harper's nerveless fingers, rolledalong the desk top. Harper pounced on the squashy thing on thefloor, feverishly pushed back the projecting insides, closelyexamined it. He looked up wide-eyed at Pillbot.
"Turned inside out," he gasped hoarsely, "without breaking itsskin!"
Pillbot's expression indicated that the scientific attitude wasslowly replacing his former fright. He snapped his fingers.
"Imitation again!" he said, half to himself. He looked at Harper."When you bent the paper figure this--this fourth dimensionalentity imitated your action by bending the Professor. Now, as youstarted to peel the orange, your action was again imitated--in afour dimensional manner--by this entity turning the other orangeinside out."
His voice dropped, as he muttered, "Imitativeness--the mark of amind of low evolutionary order, or of ..." his words faded off,his expression thoughtful.
More white showed around Harper's eyes. "You--you mean I am beingspecially watched by this Being--that He--It--imitates everythingI do...?"
"That's it," clipped Pillbot. "Because you possess this strangeperception of Its realm the Being has been especially attractedto you, imitates whatever you do, but in a four dimensionalmanner. A Being of inexplicable powers and prerogatives, withweird power over matter, but with a mentality that is either veryprimitive, or--"
Harper leaped into the air with a yell, as Professor Gault'sabbreviated body sidled up to him from behind. As he leaped, theinside out orange flew out of his grasp.
"I just know," he quavered, "that Professor Gault wants me to dosomething, is probably barking orders at me from that otherdimension--oh dear, I've dropped the orange on the Professor's--wherehis stomach should be!"
The squashy orange had landed on the area of Gault that was the lineof demarkation between his visible and invisible portions--the areathat his stomach would occupy normally. It rested there in plainsight of the two startled men.
"I--I'd better remove it," said Harper weakly. He moved with adreadful compulsion toward the swaying half-figure, one slenderhand extended tremblingly toward the inverted orange.
Abruptly, the orange vanished. Harper halted like he'd run into abrick wall. Staring blankly ahead, he put his hands to hisstomach, moaning faintly.
"What's the matter?" cried Pillbot.
"The orange--it's in my--stomach!"
"See, what did I tell you," exulted Pillbot. "Another act ofimitativeness. It saw you drop the orange on Gault's--where hisstomach should be, and imitated by putting the orange in yourstomach. It proves I'm right about the Being--glug!" With a loudbelch, Pillbot broke off. He stared blankly at Harper, then hishands slowly came up to clutch at his stomach.
Harper looked quickly at the desk top.
"The other orange," he gasped. "It's gone!"
"Into--my--stomach!" groaned Pillbot. "Be--be careful what youdo! My God, don't do anything. Don't even think. This--this fourdimensional creature will surely imitate whatever you do in someweird manner."
Rubbing his stomach, Pillbot glanced about at the variousarticles of furniture. He blanched. "I wouldn't want any of thatstuff inside of me," he yammered.
Harper flicked a despairing glance at the half-body, now glidingalong in the vicinity of the paper cutout.
"We--we must do something to get the Professor back," he saidworriedly.
* * * * *
He thought incongruously of a restaurant where he used to orderlemon pie--and invariably get apple. Finally he found that hecould get lemon by ordering peach. Now the problem was, what didhe have to "order" to get his employer extricated from beingstuck between dimensions, like a pig under a fence? Anything hedid would be imitated in a manner that might prove tragic.
The upright portion of the cutout was leaning over backward, thehead drooping down like a wilted flower, as the tension at thecrease slowly lessened.
Gathering together what resolution he could, Harper determined totake the bull by the horns. He would get the Professor returnedby pressing the upper portion of the cutout flatly onto the desksurface. With trembling hands, he pressed down on it--then sprangback with a muffled yell.
Three feet above the