Off The Main Sequence

by Robert A. Heinlein

  “Hm-m-m," he said, “this is interesting — very."

  “What is?" asked Bailey, joining him.

  “This." The window stared directly into the dining room, instead of looking outdoors. Bailey stepped back to the comer where the lounge and the dining room joined the central room at ninety degrees.

  “But that can’t be," he protested, “that window is maybe fifteen, twenty feet from the dining room."

  “Not in a tesseract," corrected Teal. “Watch." He opened the window and stepped through, talking back over his shoulder as he did so.

  From the point of view of the Baileys he simply disappeared.

  But not from his own viewpoint. It took him some seconds to catch his breath. Then he cautiously disentangled himself from the rosebush to which he had become almost irrevocably wedded, making a mental note the while never again to order landscaping which involved plants with thorns, and looked around him.

  He was outside the house. The massive bulk of the ground floor room thrust up beside him. Apparently he had fallen off the roof.

  He dashed around the corner of the house, flung open the front door and hurried up the stairs. “Homer!" he called out. “Mrs. Bailey! I’ve found a way out!"

  Bailey looked annoyed rather than pleased to see him. “What happened to you?"

  “I fell out. I’ve been outside the house. You can do it just as easily — just step through those French windows. Mind the rosebush, though — we may have to build another stairway."

  “How did you get back in?"

  “Through the front door."

  “Then we shall leave the same way. Come, my dear." Bailey set his hat firmly on his head and marched down the stairs, his wife on his arm.

  Teal met them in the lounge. “I could have told you that wouldn’t work," he announced. “Now here’s what we have to do: As I see it, in a four-dimensional figure a three-dimensional man has two choices every time he crosses a line of juncture, like a wall or a threshold. Ordinarily he will make a ninety-degree turn through the fourth dimension, only he doesn’t feel it with his three dimensions. Look." He stepped through the very window that he had fallen out of a moment before. Stepped through and arrived in the dining room, where he stood, still talking.

  “I watched where I was going and arrived where I intended to." He stepped back into the lounge. “The time before I didn’t watch and I moved on through normal space and fell out of the house. It must be a matter of subconscious orientation."

  “I’d hate to depend on subconscious orientation when I step out for the morning paper."

  “You won’t have to; it’ll become automatic. Now to get out of the house this time — Mrs. Bailey, if you will stand here with your back to the window, and jump backward, I’m pretty sure you will land in the garden."

  Mrs. Bailey’s face expressed her opinion of Teal and his ideas. “Homer Bailey," she said shrilly, “are you going to stand there and let him suggest such —"

  “But Mrs. Bailey," Teal attempted to explain, “we can tie a rope on you and lower you down eas —"

  “Forget it, Teal," Bailey cut him off brusquely. “We’ll have to find a better way than that. Neither Mrs. Bailey nor I are fitted for jumping."

  Teal was temporarily nonplused; there ensued a short silence. Bailey broke it with, “Did you hear that, Teal?"

  “Hear what?"

  “Someone talking off in the distance. D’you s’pose there could be someone else in the house, playing tricks on us, maybe?"

  “Oh, not a chance. I’ve got the only key."

  “But I’m sure of it," Mrs. Bailey confirmed. “I’ve heard them ever since we came in. Voices. Homer, I can’t stand much more of this. Do something."

  “Now, now, Mrs. Bailey," Teal soothed, “don’t get upset. There can’t be anyone else in the house, but I’ll explore and make sure. Homer, you stay here with Mrs. Bailey and keep an eye on the rooms on this floor." He passed from the lounge into the ground floor room and from there to the kitchen and on into the bedroom. This led him back to the lounge by a straight-line route, that is to say, by going straight ahead on the entire trip he returned to the place from which he started.

  “Nobody around," he reported. “I opened all of the doors and windows as I went — all except this one." He stepped to the window opposite the one through which he had recently fallen and thrust back the drapes.

  He saw a man with his back toward him, four rooms away. Teal snatched open the French window and dived through it, shouting, “There he goes now! Stop thief!"

  The figure evidently heard him; it fled precipitately. Teal pursued, his gangling limbs stirred to unanimous activity, through drawing room, kitchen, dining room, lounge-room after room, yet in spite of Teal’s best efforts he could not seem to cut down the four-room lead that the interloper had started with.

  He saw the pursued jump awkwardly but actively over the low sill of a French window and in so doing knock off his hat. When he came up to the point where his quarry had lost his headgear, he stopped and picked it up, glad of an excuse to stop and catch his breath. He was back in the lounge.

  “I guess he got away from me," he admitted. “Anyhow, here’s his hat. Maybe we can identify him."

  Bailey took the hat, looked at it, then snorted, and slapped it on Teal’s head. It fitted perfectly. Teal looked puzzled, took the hat off, and examined it. On the sweat band were the initials “Q.T." It was his own.

  Slowly comprehension filtered through Teal’s features. He went back to the French window and gazed down the series of rooms through which he had pursued the mysterious stranger. They saw him wave his arms semaphore fashion. “What are you doing?" asked Bailey.

  “Come see." The two joined him and followed his stare with their own. Four rooms away they saw the backs of three figures, two male and one female. The taller, thinner of the men was waving his arms in a silly fashion.

  Mrs. Bailey screamed and fainted again.

  Some minutes later, when Mrs. Bailey had been resuscitated and somewhat composed, Bailey and Teal took stock. “Teal," said Bailey, “I won’t waste any time blaming you; recriminations are useless and I’m sure you didn’t plan for this to happen, but I suppose you realize we are in a pretty serious predicament. How are we going to get out of here? It looks now as if we would stay until we starve; every room leads into another room."

  “Oh, it’s not that bad. I got out once, you know."

  “Yes, but you can’t repeat it — you tried."

  “Anyhow we haven’t tried all the rooms. There’s still the study."

  “Oh, yes, the study. We went through there when we first came in, and didn’t stop. Is it your idea that we might get out through its windows?"

  “Don’t get your hopes up. Mathematically, it ought to look into the four side rooms on this floor. Still we never opened the blinds; maybe we ought to look."

  " 'Twon’t do any harm anyhow. Dear, I think you had best just stay here and rest —"

  “Be left alone in this horrible place? I should say not!" Mrs. Bailey was up off the couch where she had been recuperating even as she spoke.

  They went upstairs. “This is the inside room, isn’t it, Teal?" Bailey inquired as they passed through the master bedroom and climbed on up toward the study. “I mean it was the little cube in your diagram that was in the middle of the big cube, and completely surrounded."

  “That’s right," agreed Teal. “Well, let’s have a look. I figure this window ought to give into the kitchen." He grasped the cords of Venetian blinds and pulled them.

  It did not. Waves of vertigo shook them. Involuntarily they fell to the floor and grasped helplessly at the pattern on the rug to keep from falling. “Close it! Close it!" moaned Bailey.

  Mastering in part a primitive atavistic fear, Teal worked his way back to the window and managed to release the screen. The window had looked down instead of out, down from a terrifying height.

  Mrs. Bailey had fainted again.

  Teal went back
after more brandy while Bailey chafed her wrists. When she had recovered, Teal went cautiously to the window and raised the screen a crack. Bracing his knees, he studied the scene. He turned to Bailey. “Come look at this, Homer. See if you recognize it."

  “You stay away from there, Homer Bailey!"

  “Now, Matilda, I’ll be careful." Bailey joined him and peered out.

  “See up there? That’s the Chrysler Building, sure as shooting. And there’s the East River, and Brooklyn." They gazed straight down the sheer face of an enormously tall building. More than a thousand feet away a toy city, very much alive, was spread out before them. “As near as I can figure it out, we are looking down the side of the Empire State Building from a point just above its tower.

  “What is it? A mirage?"

  “I don’t think so — it’s too perfect. I think space is folded over through the fourth dimension here and we are looking past the fold."

  “You mean we aren’t really seeing it?"

  “No, we’re seeing it all right. I don’t know what would happen if we climbed out this window, but I for one don’t want to try. But what a view! Oh, boy, what a view! Let’s try the other windows."

  They approached the next window more cautiously, and it was well that they did, for it was even more disconcerting, more reason-shaking, than the one looking down the gasping height of the skyscraper. It was a simple seascape, open ocean and blue sky — but the ocean was where the sky should have been, and contrariwise. This time they were somewhat braced for it, but they both felt seasickness about to overcome them at the sight of waves rolling overhead; they lowered the blind quickly without giving Mrs. Bailey a chance to be disturbed by it.

  Teal looked at the third window. “Game to try it, Homer?"

  “Hrrumph — well, we won’t be satisfied if we don’t. Take it easy." Teal lifted the blind a few inches. He saw nothing, and raised it a little more — still nothing. Slowly he raised it until the window was fully exposed. They gazed out at — nothing.

  Nothing, nothing at all. What color is nothing? Don’t be silly! What shape is it? Shape is an attribute of something. It had neither depth nor form. It had not even blackness. It was nothing.

  Bailey chewed at his cigar. “Teal, what do you make of that?"

  Teal’s insouciance was shaken for the first time. “I don’t know, Homer, I don’t rightly know — but I think that window ought to be walled up." He stared at the lowered blind for a moment. “I think maybe we looked at a place where space isn’t. We looked around a fourth-dimensional corner and there wasn’t anything there." He rubbed his eyes. “I’ve got a headache."

  They waited for a while before tackling the fourth window. Like an unopened letter, it might not contain bad news. The doubt left hope. Finally the suspense stretched too thin and Bailey pulled the cord himself, in the face of his wife’s protests.

  It was not so bad. A landscape stretched away from them, right side up, and on such a level that the study appeared to be a ground floor room. But it was distinctly unfriendly.

  A hot, hot sun beat down from a lemon-colored sky. The flat ground seemed burned a sterile, bleached brown and incapable of supporting life. Life there was, strange stunted trees that lifted knotted, twisted arms to the sky. Little clumps of spiky leaves grew on the outer extremities of these misshapen growths.

  “Heavenly day," breathed Bailey, “where is that?"

  Teal shook his head, his eyes troubled. “It beats me."

  “It doesn’t look like anything on Earth. It looks more like another planet — Mars, maybe."

  “I wouldn’t know. But, do you know, Homer, it might be worse than that, worse than another planet, I mean."

  “Huh? What’s that you say?"

  “It might be clear out of our space entirely. I’m not sure that that is our sun at all. It seems too bright."

  Mrs. Bailey had somewhat timidly joined them and now gazed out at the outre scene. “Homer," she said in a subdued voice, “those hideous trees — they frighten me."

  He patted her hand.

  Teal fumbled with the window catch.

  “What are you doing?" Bailey demanded.

  “I thought if I stuck my head out the window I might be able to look around and tell a bit more."

  “Well — all right," Bailey grudged, “but be careful."

  “I will." He opened the window a crack and sniffed. “The air is all right, at least." He threw it open wide.

  His attention was diverted before he could carry out his plan. An uneasy tremor, like the first intimation of nausea, shivered the entire building for a long second, and was gone.

  “Earthquake!" They all said it at once. Mrs. Bailey flung her arms around her husband’s neck.

  Teal gulped and recovered himself, saying:

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Bailey. This house is perfectly safe. You know you can expect settling tremors after a shock like last night." He had just settled his features into an expression of reassurance when the second shock came. This one was no mild shimmy but the real seasick roll.

  In every Californian, native born or grafted, there is a deep-rooted primitive reflex. An earthquake fills him with soul-shaking claustrophobia which impels him blindly to get outdoors! Model Boy Scouts will push aged grandmothers aside to obey it. It is a matter of record that Teal and Bailey landed on top of Mrs. Bailey. Therefore, she must have jumped through the window first. The order of precedence cannot be attributed to chivalry; it must be assumed that she was in readier position to spring.

  They pulled themselves together, collected their wits a little, and rubbed sand from their eyes. Their first sensations were relief at feeling the solid sand of the desert land under them. Then Bailey noticed something that brought them to their feet and checked Mrs. Bailey from bursting into the speech that she had ready.

  “Where’s the house?"

  It was gone. There was no sign of it at all. They stood in the center of flat desolation, the landscape they had seen from the window. But, aside from the tortured, twisted trees, there was nothing to be seen but the yellow sky and the luminary overhead, whose furnacelike glare was already almost insufferable.

  Bailey looked slowly around, then turned to the architect. “Well, Teal?" His voice was ominous.

  Teal shrugged helplessly. “I wish I knew. I wish I could even be sure that we were on Earth."

  “Well, we can’t stand here. It’s sure death if we do. Which direction?"

  “Any, I guess. Let’s keep a bearing on the sun."

  They had trudged on for an undetermined distance when Mrs. Bailey demanded a rest. They stopped. Teal said in an aside to Bailey, “Any ideas?"

  “No … no, none. Say, do you hear anything?"

  Teal listened. “Maybe — unless it’s my imagination."

  “Sounds like an automobile. Say, it is an automobile!"

  They came to the highway in less than another hundred yards. The automobile, when it arrived, proved to be an elderly, puffing light truck, driven by a rancher. He crunched to a stop at their hail. “We’re stranded. Can you help us out?"

  “Sure. Pile in."

  “Where are you headed?"

  “Los Angeles."

  “Los Angeles? Say, where is this place?"

  “Well, you’re right in the middle of the Joshua-Tree National Forest."

  The return was as dispiriting as the Retreat from Moscow. Mr. and Mrs. Bailey sat up in front with the driver while Teal bumped along in the body of the truck, and tried to protect his head from the sun. Bailey subsidized the friendly rancher to detour to the tesseract house, not because they wanted to see it again, but in order to pick up their car.

  At last the rancher turned the corner that brought them back to where they had started. But the house was no longer there.

  There was not even the ground floor room. It had vanished. The Baileys, interested in spite of themselves, poked around the foundations with Teal.

  “Got any answers for this one, Teal?" asked Bailey
.

  “It must be that on that last shock it simply fell through into another section of space. I can see now that I should have anchored it at the foundations."

  “That’s not all you should have done."

  “Well, I don’t see that there is anything to get downhearted about. The house was insured, and we’ve learned an amazing lot. There are possibilities, man, possibilities! Why, right now I’ve got a great new revolutionary idea for a house —"

  Teal ducked in time. He was always a man of action.

  “Let There Be Light"

  Super Science Stories, May 1940 as by Lyle Monroe

  Archibald Douglas, Sc.D., Ph.D., B.S., read the telegram with unconcealed annoyance.

  “ARRIVING CITY LATE TODAY STOP DESIRE CONFERENCE COLD LIGHT YOUR LABORATORY TEN P M

  (signed) DR. M. L MARTIN"

  He was, was he? He did, did he? What did he think this lab was; a hotel? And did Martin think that his time was at the disposal of any Joe Doakes who had the price of a telegram? He had framed in his mind an urbanely discouraging reply when he noticed that the message had been filed at a mid-western airport. Very well, let him arrive. Douglas had no intention of meeting him.

  Nevertheless, his natural curiosity caused him to take down his copy of Who’s Who in Science and look up the offender. There it was: Martin, M. L., biochemist and ecologist, P.D.Q., X.Y.Z., N.R.A., C.I.O. — enough degrees for six men. Hmmm… — Director Guggenheim Orinoco Fauna Survey, Author; Co-Lateral Symbiosis of the Boll Weevil, and so on, through three inches of fine print The old boy seemed to be a heavyweight.

  A little later Douglas surveyed himself in the mirror of the laboratory washroom. He took off a dirty laboratory smock, removed a comb from his vest pocket, and put a careful polish on his sleek black hair. An elaborately tailored checked jacket, a snap-brim hat and he was ready for the street. He fingered the pale scar that stenciled the dark skin of one cheek. Not bad, he thought, in spite of the scar. If it weren’t for the broken nose he would look O.K.