by Earl
“Yeah, I guess so,” agreed Hale soberly “When Dr. Vance yanked himself into the F.D. somehow, some of the F.D. cam here in exchange. But why it had to draped itself around us like a coiled snake . . .”
He trailed off into muttered curses.
“No, Terry! It’s the other way around!” said Lona bleakly. “Dr. Vance sent us off into the Fifth Dimension! Remember that queer experience we had of being turned inside out and upside down and rushing somewhere? That was our trip into the Fifth Dimension . . . through a sort of mental plane. But he didn’t know, of course, that we were transported. He simply sent a circle of land surrounding his laboratory to the Fifth Dimension, and we were on it, against his warnings.”
The girl spoke rapidly, as though putting the final pieces of a jig-saw puzzle together. Hale stood open-mouthed.
“HIS laboratory still stands on earth, where it has always been. Surrounding it is a circle of alien land exactly the same shape and size . . . like a doughnut . . . of this earth-piece we’re on. He found the way to exchange them, through the Fifth Dimensional psychic-plane. It probably involved no actual physical transference, but just a mental or probably telekinetic process. And don’t you see, Terry, it’s his way of exploring the Fifth Dimensional universe!”
Hale nodded a little dazedly.
“I get it,” he said. “Clever guy. He brings a sample of the alien world that he wants to see right to his doorstep. He makes the mountain come to him. Clever guy!”
The line of his jaw tightened as he looked around. “And here we are,” he growled, “marooned in the Fifth Dimension! How . . . how far from earth do you suppose we are?”
The girl sucked in her breath. Her eyes grew misty as though she were thinking of the biggest number there was.
“Terry, there’s no way of judging that . . . not in terms we understand. It’s not just miles, or light-years, or distance at all. I know. I’ve looked at those equations. They use terms of dimension that would count our entire galaxy as an unmeasurable fraction of the smallest unit!”
Hale’s eyes became a little hard. “You mean you really don’t know just how far we are from . . . home? And there’s no way of saying?” He snorted a bit sarcastically.
“Please don’t ask me to explain, Terry,” said Lona. “We’re unthinkably far from earth, in another dimension—one humans don’t ordinarily travel at all. No matter in which direction I pointed, I wouldn’t be pointing toward earth, either. We’re lost, Terry . . . horribly lost . . .”
Lona Darson was suddenly sobbing on his shoulder.
“There, there!” said Hale, automatically patting her head. “I was lost in the woods once and thought I’d never get out, but I did.” There was a brittle cheerfulness in his tones.
He looked around with eyes red-rimmed from the touch of bromine. To himself he added, “But I never saw a woods like this before!”
“No, neither did I,” thought Lona to herself. Then she choked on a sob.
They looked at each other startled. “Why, I heard what you said, though I didn’t hear your voice!” gasped the girl.
“And I heard you . . . in my mind!” said Hale.
“Telepathy!” cried Lona. “But it’s not so strange. This is the psychic dimension, the one in which thought radiates freely. I remember that from the equations.”
“Well, so what?” growled Hale. “We’re still stuck here.”
The twining wisps and streamers of red fog of deadly poison from the alien jungle crept inward toward them, like a stealthy enemy. And in the depths of the alien jungle, savage beasts roamed, whose one blow would spell death to the two humans.
POISON IN THE AIR!
DR. VANCE and his assistant Hans looked like grotesque gnomes as they peered out through the goggles of their gas-masks at the unworldly scene about their laboratory.
There was a change going on out there. The reddish murk that overhung the ultrajungle was thinning. Eddying currents arose that spiraled the red fog into the blue sky of earth, dispersing it in that vast vault. As the mists lightened, the alien vegetation became starkly revealed in the bright sunshine. It wasn’t green vegetation. It was pulpy white, as revolting in texture as dead flesh.
Dr. Vance ripped off his mask finally. “See, I told you, Hans!” he chortled. “The red mist had to diffuse into the air. That danger is past. We can even go out there now . . .”
“No . . . no!” interposed Hans, shaking his head violently. “Those beasts . . .”
Dr. Vance pointed. “There’s one of the creatures. Watch him!”
The hulking shape of a nameless monster lumbered among the giant flora. He seemed to be running in a blind panic. His pace slowed as the red mist thinned steadily. Finally he stopped altogether and sank to his haunches. His lungs heaved in a labored way, like a fish out of water. He rolled over on his side, kicking feebly. He was obviously marked for death.
“You see, they can’t live in oxygen, or in earth’s atmosphere,” resumed Dr. Vance. “Their metabolism requires bromine and cyanogen, which is their normal atmosphere. Oxygen kills them as surely as the other gases would kill us. In an hour or so no living thing in that area will exist. Of course, no living thing of earth could survive on that other world with its atmosphere hell-brew of lethal gases. If any birds or field-mice or insects were transported to the Fifth Dimensional Conti . . .”
A thought struck him. “Now I hope those two young fools that were here before didn’t hang around!” he said worriedly. “No, no, of course not!” he added immediately. “They must have left. I put a good scare into both of them.”
AT the same time, in that other world across the gulf of the fifth dimension, Terrance Hale was saying bitterly. “That’s just the irony of our situation, that Dr. Vance doesn’t know we’re here, to rescue us. We might just as well be on Mars.”
“Mars would probably be preferable,” said Lona Darson resignedly. “We don’t stand a chance here.”
She had cried herself out and now faced the issue philosophically. They stood arm in arm near the spot where the laboratory had stood. It was about the center of the inimical ring of alien forest. Breathable air would remain here the longest.
But not for long. The taint of bromine was strong already. It stung their eyes and made their throats raw. The blue sun shone redly now through mists that were gathering thickly over them. Diffusion was steadily contaminating their pocket of earth-air that had come along with them. Deadly cyanogen was building up to fatal concentration.
Hale rebelled against the inevitable. “Isn’t there some way we could signal Dr. Vance?” he muttered.
“No,” said Lona hopelessly. “Terry, we’re unthinkably remote from our universe. That sun never was a star in earthly eyes, even with the biggest telescope. It’s all so frightful . . .”
“How about this telepathy?” said Hale suddenly. “Maybe that’s the one thing that can reach across this crazy dimension!”
“Terry, maybe you’re right!” New hope flooded Lona’s face. “It should be like a light signal across spatial dimensions. Let’s try it! Suppose we concentrate on gaining Dr. Vance’s attention, by telepathy, and telling him we’re here!”
With desperate enthusiasm they began sending a silent, mental call. “Dr. Vance! Dr. Vance! We are marooned in the earth-segment you sent into the Fifth Dimension. Terrance Hale and Lona Darson. Please rescue us! Dr. Vance! Dr. Vance . . .”
They kept it up till the terrific strain made their brains reel. But no slightest indication came back to them that the scientist, incredibly remote in a different universe, had heard. Their voiceless message seemed to beat futilely into the bottomless depts of sheer endlessness.
“No answer!” moaned Lona after a time. “We should get an answer if we established any sort of rapport at all.” She glanced at her companion hopelessly.
They tried some more, but knew, by a strange subtle sense, that their message was not being intercepted.
“No use,” groaned Hale finally. He look
ed at the girl with dark-circled eyes. “This is all my fault, of course. Like a fool, I stayed around, after Dr. Vance’s warning. Worst of all, I . . .” He coughed as a reeking cloud of brominated vapor billowed around them. “I got you into this, Lona. That makes me the prize ass of all the known and unknown universes there are!”
The girl pressed his arm. “Don’t say that, Terry. I’m as responsible as you are. After all, I could have left. It was my own curiosity that made me stay.”
“Thanks,” said Hale simply.
A moment later he went on more slowly, and in lower tones. “You know, you hit me like a gold brick when I first saw you, Lona. That was only an hour ago, wasn’t it?”
His voice was husky now. He wanted to go on, but he couldn’t. Instead, he laughed crazily.
“I was just thinking,” he said, “of what my landlady will say when I don’t show up. I owed her three weeks’ rent!”
Lona shuddered. “Terry, please . . .”
They both began coughing wretchedly as the bromine taint became stronger. A moment later they were writhing on the ground. Their senses reeled from the poisons that were accumulating within their bodies. Each searing gasp of their lungs drew in more and brought the end closer.
Around them, the alien environment was relentlessly closing in. The trees and grasses from earth were already withering at the breath of gases their evolution had not equipped them to handle. Birds and insects dropped out of the trees and bushes. Soon the bit of earth that had been transplanted across the abyss of the Fifth Dimension would no longer harbor its life. It would become a graveyard, later to be choked with utterly alien life-forms.
Instinctively, the two humans clutched one another in their arms. Hale ground his teeth in the effort to regain a moment of rationality before death.
“Lona!” he gasped. “Just want to tell you . . . before we go . . . that I . . .”
A harsh cough rattled in his throat.
“I know!” breathed Lona. Her lips were on his suddenly. For a brief moment, they forgot their pain and misery—and doom.
Then a choking current of gas swirled about their heads, tearing them apart like a jealous demon. They fell back, stricken and helpless.
Hale groaned mentally as he felt his mind reeling at the greater abyss of extinction. It was hell to die like this!—an ultrahell, when they were so young and had just found one another. They musn’t die! It wasn’t right. Wasn’t there any way to signal the man who could rescue them? Telepathy! But they had tried and failed. His mind was slipping fast, if he couldn’t remember . . .”
“Half a car!” he yelled out, and then laughed madly. “Half a car! Half a car! Remember, Lona . . . just half a car!”
The girl, her mind just dropping into a vast black pool, was glad she would not hear any more in an instant, would not hear the man she loved rave insanely . . .
DR. VANCE struggled out of his smock.
“Come on, Hans!” he said eagerly. “We’ll go out and wander through the alien environment we plucked out of the Fifth Dimensional Continuum. That will be a thrill never before experienced by man—and without the slightest bit of danger!”
Hans followed the scientist somewhat reluctantly. He was still trembling at the impact of the alien scene on his imaginative mind.
They stepped from the little fringe of normal ground to the soil of the other world. It was slippery and they had to move along carefully. It glowed oddly by its own phosphorescence wherever shade hid the sun.
“Radioactive stuff!” said Dr. Vance happily. “What luck! I’ll have the radioactive element extracted and sell it. My funds have become pretty low with all the expense of this experiment. And incidentally, I’ll also get the Nobel Prize for this!” He let out a boyish whoop. “Hurray for the Fifth Dimension!”
But Hans was not so enthusiastic. His face looked oddly reflective.
“Why have you got that sour look?” snapped Dr. Vance. “What’s worrying you now? I never knew a man who could find more things to worry about . . .”
Hans spoke slowly. “I was just wondering. Suppose those two young people did get transported! Wouldn’t it be horrible?”
“For heaven’s sake,” retorted the scientist. “Don’t keep bringing that up. That’s all you’ve been saying for the past half hour.” He went on sarcastically. “Are you still getting that telepathic message? What does it say?”
“Yes, I’m still getting it. I believe it’s they. But I can’t make it out.” Hans’ face was serious and puzzled.
“Oh, forget it, Hans!” scoffed the scientist. “Of course they aren’t there. Now don’t mention that again.”
But Hans continued to be reflective. He began to act dazed, and wandered around as though searching for something. He held up his head at times, listening.
He wandered rather far from the scientist. Suddenly something riveted his attention. He ran toward it. A moment later his wild shout startled Dr. Vance from his close examination of a queer, spiny plant. The scientist hurried to him.
“Look!” pointed Hans, at the edge of the alien jungle.
“Good Lord!” gasped Dr. Vance. “Then . . .”
He broke off and ran toward their laboratory faster than he had ever run since his youth. Hans was right behind him. Panting, the two men made frantic adjustments of their apparatus. Finally Dr. Vance threw the master switch and the odd mirrors at the top of their tower bathed the surrounding area in a spectrum glow. Telekinetic energy sprang into being, forming a pathway between two universes.
TERRANCE HALE opened his eyes, closed them, opened them again—and grinned. At a glance he had seen that he was on earth and that Lona Darson was alive with him and smiling. They were lying on couches in Dr. Vance’s living quarters, with the little scientist hovering over them nervously. He was waving ammoniated spirits under their noses alternately.
“Thank God you’re alive!” said Dr. Vance hoarsely. “We got you back just in time. That must have been a horrible experience in that alien world . . .” He shuddered.
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!” said Hale. “Lona and I . . . up there . . . well, anyway, this will mean a whale of a story . . . and a raise for me. By the way . . . he turned his head to the girl . . .” does what I said in the Fifth Dimension go here on earth?”
Lona reached for his hand. “No, silly. You have to say it all over again!” She became serious. “But how were we saved? I don’t understand. Did our telepathic message work through after all?”
“Not to me,” said Dr. Vance.
Hans spoke eagerly. “A telepathic message came through to me. I couldn’t understand it at first. I finally caught on. It said ‘half a car!’ Half a car!’ When I saw the half a car at the edge of the jungle, I knew.”
“Just as I figured,” Hale murmured. “The first message was too complicated. I knew that if I could once get that simple thought of half a car across, and they investigated, they wouldn’t be able to doubt what it meant.”
He sighed contentedly. “As I was saying, Lona—”
POLAR DOOM
Power unlimited and peace on earth was the very life-force of Professor Howard Manning, hut his collaborator, and brother, Dr. John Manning, was a power-mad egotist who would pervert his scientific genius to make slaves of his fellow beings!
THE pilot in the helm of the huge ocean liner leaned lazily on the open window’s ledge, gazing out dreamily over the azure stretches of the Atlantic, which was almost lake-like in its smoothness.
Suddenly his day-dreaming was disturbed. A peculiar feeling shot through him. He couldn’t define it, but it was a sensation of reversal, somehow. As though he had been whirled about with superspeed. An intense vertigo gripped him.
Seasickness? He—veteran of a hundred trips? Incredible!
Besides, that calm sea was not the kind to give the ship any sort of roll.
The sensation passed in a second, but still the pilot felt strange. What in the devil was wrong with him? Uneasily, he ran
to look at the ship’s instruments. His eyes snapped open and threatened to pop from their sockets.
Something was wrong! A moment before the ship had been sailing almost due east, to Europe. Now, according to the compass, it had swung due south!
Yet one glance at the sun convinced him that the ship had not made an incredible right-angle turn. Then it was just the compass—
Suddenly, the same feeling gripped him again. It seemed to wrench his internal organs, every body-cell, out of place. From below came cries of alarm, from the passengers. He glanced at the compass and saw that it had swung again and was now pointing east for north. After that there occurred several more twinges of momentary nausea and the compass became a mad thing, darting every which way.
Bewildered, the pilot looked at the barometer. It was dropping like a ton of bricks!
This heralded a sudden and profound change in weather. Clouds had piled up miraculously, changing the Atlantic from a sparkling glory of blue to a brooding, ominous sea of dun. Lightning began sending its fiery fingers over the sky. The rumble of thunder poured through the air like a river of sound. A howling gale arose that lashed the water to a frenzy.
Huge waves broke against the ship, giving it a roll that quickly sent most passengers to the rail or to their cabins. A terrific storm broke over the Atlantic that had been so peaceful fifteen minutes before. Rain came down as though poured from the sky.
One phenomenon stood out above the others, during the storm. St. Elmo’s Fire, a queer phosphorescent dancing glow, appeared over every bit of metal in the ship. More than one passenger was frightened out of his wits to see the ghostly light prancing around his cabin.
The bewildered captain of the ship, feeling completely lost without the guidance of sun, stars, or compass, ordered the ship stopped and waited for the storm to blow over. Three hours later the sun broke through the cloud veils and all became serene again.
The compass was once again normal!
THE same phenomenon manifested itself all over earth at the same time, in varying degrees of abnormality. Everyone on earth had that feeling of internal reversal—of “going through the looking-glass”. All meteorological instruments went temporarily insane. Barometers shot to new highs and lows. Compasses pointed to the west and called it north, and later began spinning like dervishes, as though not sure any more which way was north.
