The Einstein See-Saw Read online

with a vast amount ofwindow space. From the sidewalk they could see faint lights glowingwithin, but could make out no further details. They therefore selectedthe darkest side of the building, and made their way hurriedly acrossthe lawn. Here, they found, they could see the crowding apparatuswithin the one long room fairly well. They looked into one windowafter another, making a circuit around the building, until Philsuddenly clutched the girl's arm.

  "Look!" he whispered. "Straight ahead and a little to the left!"

  At the place he indicated stood a tall safe. Across the top of itsdoor were painted in gold letters, the words: "The Epicure."

  "That's the safe that went to-night," whispered Phil. "That's all weneed to know. Now, quick to a telephone!"

  "Oh," said a gentle, ironic voice behind them, "not so quick!"

  * * * * *

  They whirled around and found themselves looking into two automaticpistols, and behind them in the light of the street lamps, thesardonic smile of Tony Costello.

  "Charmed at your kind interest in my playthings, I'm sure," he purred."Only it leaves me in an embarrassing position. I'm not exactly surewhat to do about it. Kindly step inside while I think."

  Phil made a move sidewise along the wall.

  "Stop!" barked Costello sharply. "Of course," his voice was quietagain, "that might be the simplest way out. I think I am within mylegal rights if I shoot people who are trying to break into myproperty. Yet, that would be messy--not neat. Better step in. Thewindow swings outward."

  At the point of his pistols they clambered through the window, and hecame in after them. He kept on talking, as though to himself, but loudenough for them to hear.

  "Yes, we want some way out that is neater than that. Hm! Violencedistresses me. Never liked Ed's rough methods. Yet, this isembarrassing."

  He turned to them.

  "What did you really want here? I see that you are the _Examiner's_reporter, and that you are the lady of the photograph. What did youcome here for? Ah, yes, the safe. Well, go over and look at it."

  As they hesitated, he stamped his foot and shrilled crankily:

  "I mean it! Go, look at the safe! Is there anything else you want toknow?"

  "Yes," said Phil coolly, his self-control returning, "where are theother safes?"

  "Oh. Anything to oblige. Last requests are a sort of point of honor,aren't they. Ought to grant them. Stand close to that safe!"

  * * * * *

  He backed away, his guns levelled at them. He laid down the right one,keeping the left one aimed, and moved some knobs on a dial and threwover a big switch. A muffled rumbling and whirring began somewhere;and then, slowly, a block of tables and apparatus ten feet square roseupward toward the ceiling. A section of the floor on which they stoodcame up, supported by columns, and now formed the roof of a room thathad risen out of the floor. In it were four safes.

  "Poor old Ed!" sighed Tony. "There was a time when he had a lot ofgood stuff put away down there. I've got six rooms like that. Well,the good old times are over."

  He threw out the switch and the whole mass sank slowly and silentlydownward till the floor was level and there was no further sign of it.Then he backed away to another table, across the room from them,keeping his gun levelled.

  "Too bad," he said. "I don't like to do these things. But--" he sigheddeeply, "self-preservation. Now I'm going to flip you out, yes,_out_, into a strange region. I've never been there. I don't know ifthere is food or drink there. I hope so, for you'll never get backhere."

  Phil stiffened. He determined to leap and risk a shot. But he was toolate. Tony's hand came down on a switch. There was a sudden,nauseating jar. The laboratory vanished.

  There was only the safe, Ione Bloomsbury and himself, and a smallcircle of concrete floor extending to a dim little horizon a dozenfeet away. Beyond that, nothing. Not blue, as the sky is. Not black,as dark, empty spaces are. It suggested black, because there was noimpression of light or color on the eyes; but it wasn't black. It wasnothingness.

  PART IV

  _Marooned in Hyperspace_

  "I suppose you realize what he has done?" Miss Bloomsbury inquired.

  "Couldn't be too sure, but it looks like plenty. What's the equationfor it?" Beneath his jocularity, Phil felt a tremendous sinking withinhim. It looked serious, despite the fact that he did not understand itat all.

  "He has swung us out into hyperspace, or into the fourth dimension, asyour newspaper readers might understand it, and has let us hang there.Remember our slip of paper. Suppose X and Y were swung out of theplane of the paper and allowed to remain at an angle with it. We areat an angle with space, out in hyperspace."

  There was a period of bewilderment, almost panic, in which they bothfelt so physically weak that they had to sit down on the concrete andstare at each other mutely. But this passed and their natural couragesoon reasserted itself. Their first thought was to take stock of whatinformation they could get on their situation; and their first stepwas to venture as close as possible to the queer little horizon whichlay almost at their very feet. It gave them a frightened feeling, asthough they were standing high up on a precipice or tower.

  To their surprise, the horizon receded as they walked toward it,always remaining about a dozen feet away from them. At first theywalked on concrete and then came to a crumbly edge of it and foundthemselves stepping on hard, sandy earth. Later there was rock,sometimes granite-like, sometimes black and shiny. But what they sawunderfoot was nothing, compared with the glimpses of things they gotout in the surrounding emptiness. First there was a vast space inwhich a soft light shone, and in which there were countless spheres ofvarious sizes, motionlessly suspended. The spheres seemed to be madeof wood, a green, sap-filled, unseasoned wood. The scene was visiblefor a few seconds, and vanished suddenly as they walked on. Thisastonished them; so they stepped back a pace or two and saw it again;and as they moved on, it disappeared again.

  * * * * *

  Then there was a great stretch of water in which the backs of hugemonsters rolled and from which a hot wind blew for a few instantsuntil they passed on and the scene vanished. There was a short walkwith nothing but emptiness, and then there appeared huge, oblique,cubistic looking rows of jagged rocks in wild, dizzy formations thatdidn't look possible; and farther on, after another interval ofemptiness, a tangle of brown, ropey vines with black-green leaves onthem, an immense space filled with serpentine swinging loops andlengths of innumerable vines. Several loops projected so near themthat they could have reached out and touched them had they wished.

  "This is too much for me!" Phil gasped. "Have we gone crazy? Or didhe kill us, and is this Purgatory?"

  Ione smiled and shook her little head in which she had a goodly storeof modern mathematics stored away.

  "These must be glimpses of other 'spaces' besides our own space. If wecould see in four dimensions we could see them all spread out beforeus. But we can only perceive in three dimensions; therefore, as wewalk through hyperspace, past the different 'spaces' which are rangedabout in it, we get a glimpse into such of them as are parallel withour own space. Can you understand that?"

  "Oh, yes," groaned Phil. "It sounds just about like it looks. But,don't mind me. Go on, have your fun."

  "I've been thinking about those wooden spheres," continued Ione. "I'msure they must be sections of trees that are cut crosswise by our'space;' they grow in three dimensions, but only two of them are ourdimensions and a third is strange to us. We see only three-dimensionalsections of them, which are spheres. There is more of them, that wecannot see, in another dimension."

  "Yes, yes. Just as plain as the Jabberwock!"

  "Look! There's a real Jabberwock!" exclaimed Ione.

  On ahead of them they saw a number of creatures that seemed to be madeof painted wooden balls in different colors, joined together.

  "Tinkertoys!" exclaimed Phil. "Live ones! Big ones!"

  The animals, though they
looked for all the world as though they weremade of painted wood, moved with jerky motions and clattered andsnarled.

  "There is probably more to _them_ in another dimension," Ione said.

  * * * * *

  Suddenly one of the beasts approached them with a leap. There were twobig eyes and two rows of teeth that came together with a snap, righton Phil's trouser-leg. He jerked himself away, sacrificing some squareinches of trouser-leg, and, whirling around, kicked at the thing withall his force. It almost paralyzed his foot, for the animal seemed tobe made of wood or bone. But it disappeared, and, as it did, both ofthem felt a queer, nauseating jolt. A few more