The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume VI: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

by Various

  Abruptly, the orange vanished. Harper halted like he'd run into a brick wall. Staring blankly ahead, he put his hands to his stomach, 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 of imitativeness. It saw you drop the orange on Gault's--where his stomach should be, and imitated by putting the orange in your stomach. It proves I'm right about the Being--glug!" With a loud belch, Pillbot broke off. He stared blankly at Harper, then his hands 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 you do! My God, don't do anything. Don't even think. This--this four dimensional creature will surely imitate whatever you do in some weird manner."

  Rubbing his stomach, Pillbot glanced about at the various articles of furniture. He blanched. "I wouldn't want any of that stuff inside of me," he yammered.

  Harper flicked a despairing glance at the half-body, now gliding along in the vicinity of the paper cutout.

  "We--we must do something to get the Professor back," he said worriedly.

  * * * * *

  He thought incongruously of a restaurant where he used to order lemon pie--and invariably get apple. Finally he found that he could get lemon by ordering peach. Now the problem was, what did he have to "order" to get his employer extricated from being stuck between dimensions, like a pig under a fence? Anything he did would be imitated in a manner that might prove tragic.

  The upright portion of the cutout was leaning over backward, the head drooping down like a wilted flower, as the tension at the crease slowly lessened.

  Gathering together what resolution he could, Harper determined to take the bull by the horns. He would get the Professor returned by pressing the upper portion of the cutout flatly onto the desk surface. With trembling hands, he pressed down on it--then sprang back with a muffled yell.

  Three feet above the half-body, the Professor's head had flashed into visibility.

  "You only pressed the head onto the desk," said Pillbot disgustedly, "so the Being only impressed Galt's head back into the laboratory. Now press down the rest of the body."

  The Professor's head, suspended above the body, glared about, affixed Harper with a smouldering glance. The mouth moved rapidly, but no words came.

  "Professor, I can't hear you," whimpered Harper. "Your lungs and vocal cords are in the other dimension. Here, I'll have you completely returned." He reached a hand toward the cutout, the torso of which still bulged upward from the desk.

  Gault's head wagged in vigorous negation of Harper's contemplated act. His mouth moved in what, if audible, would have been clipped, burning accents.

  Harper drew back his hand as if he had touched a red hot poker. "The Professor doesn't want me to touch the cutout," he said helplessly.

  Gault's head hovered over the cutout like a gaunt moon. It swooped down toward the paper figure, seemed to be studying its position on the desk closely. Pillbot watched him for a sign of his intentions or wishes.

  Harper wandered distractedly over toward the high wall bench. He had it! He would distract the attention of the Entity from Gault by making another cutout. He would then experiment with that second one, without endangering Gault. He'd be careful not to make this one thin and tall, so as not to resemble the Professor in outline. Perhaps with it, he could trick the Entity into releasing the missing part of Gault's body....

  He scraped in the bench drawer for the scissors, and started to sheer through a large stiff piece of paper.

  A moment later he looked up as Pillbot walked over.

  "Gault has some reason for not wanting his silhouette touched," he said. "Can't quite make out his lip movements, but he seems afraid some permanent mark may be left on him by his return. He wants time to figure out--why, what are you doing?"

  "I've made another cutout for experiment," explained Harper. "And this one doesn't look like the Professor, isn't tall and thin. See--?" He lifted the second cutout from the flat surface of the bench, held it suspended before him.

  "This one is short and fat--" Harper halted abruptly, the breath whooshing from his lungs.

  There was no use talking to thin air. Pillbot had been whisked into nothingness. Where the portly figure of the eminent psychiatrist had stood was now nothing, not even a half man.

  Too late, Harper realized that when he had lifted the paper figure from the surface of the bench, the Entity had imitated him by "lifting" Pillbot into the fourth dimension. Belatedly, he knew that the cutout which he held dangling, resembled Pillbot in outline.

  Harper dashed back and forth in little rushes, carrying the paper figure. He dared not put it down, for fear of seeing some segment of Pillbot flash back. He did not know what to do with it.

  Finally he compromised by suspending it to a low hanging chandelier, where it dangled swaying in the slight air currents.

  * * * * *

  Gault was watching his assistant's antics with a bleak expression that changed to sardonic satisfaction as he realized Pillbot was in a predicament like his--only more so. Abruptly he frowned, staring ahead, and Harper guessed that Pillbot had located Gault's torso in the other realm, was nudging him to indicate the fact.

  Suddenly Harper knew that he himself must enter this fourth dimensional realm. That strange instinct told him the solution to everything was there--somewhat as a woman's intuition impels her to act in a certain way, without knowing why.

  How to get there? Another paper cutout? He glanced toward the Professor--the occupied trousers, and swimming above it, the man's head. The head was watching him, the expression savage.

  No, there must be no more cutouts, Harper decided. While the four dimensional entity distinguished between the outlines of a thin silhouette and a fat one, something in between, like Harper's form, would be testing It too far.

  He, Harper would take the place of his own cutout!

  Gault's head reared up, glared fixedly at his assistant as the young man swung his legs onto the desk, then lay down flat. A moment he lay there, in "Flatland"--then leaped to his feet.

  It was as though he had leaped into a different world. He was no longer in the laboratory. He wasn't on any, floor at all, as far as he could make out. His feet rested on nothing--and yet there was some sort of tension under him--like the surface tension of water.

  He was--he suddenly knew it--standing on a segment of warped space! There was a spacial strain here that acted as a solid beneath him!

  Harper looked "up"--that is, overhead. There was nothing there but vast stretches of emptiness--at first. Then he saw that this emptiness was lined and laced with filmy striations, like cellophane. They bore a strange resemblance to his "doodlings," as though that strange faculty of his enabled him to somehow perceive this place of the fourth dimension. And instinctively Harper knew that these lacings were the boundaries of a vast enclosure--a four dimensional enclosure, the "walls" of which consisted of joined and meshed space-warps.

  Abruptly he became aware of movement. He became aware of solidity there above him. And the solidity was in motion.

  Harper knew he was gazing upon a being of the fourth dimension--doubtless the Entity that had caused the phenomena in the laboratory, which had snatched him into the fourth dimension, and was even now observing him with its four dimensional sight! There was a shape above him that strained his eyes, gave hint of Form just beyond his comprehension.

  Harper hardly noticed that Pillbot was beside him, shaking him. He had suddenly grasped a fundamental law of spacial stresses, and he whipped out a pad and pencil, began scribbling down the mathematical formula of these laws. He began to see now why skyscrapers encountered the "stress-barrier" at a certain height. He understood it just as a person of innate musical ability, hearing music for the first time, would understand the laws of that music.


  "Look out, It's moving, descending!" Pillbot was yelling into his ear. "It is about to act. Became active the moment you got here. How did you induce it to bring you here?"

  "Huh?" Harper looked up from his scribbling. "Oh." Harper explained quickly how he had induced the Being to act on himself.

  "That's it!" cried Pillbot hoarsely. "You switched the pattern of imitation on It--tricked It into bringing you here. That's what made it angry--"

  "Angry?" Harper almost dropped his pad, clutched at Pillbot as there was a sudden upheaval of the invisible tension-surface on which they stood. A violent shake sprawled them on the "ground" and now Harper saw the torso of Gault, a few feet away, apparently hovering above the surface.

  "Yes, angry!" Pillbot was pale. "As long as you merely gave it something to imitate it was pacified. But now it recognizes opposition, an effort to outwit it due to your switching the pattern of imitation. Its condition is dangerous--it's bound to react violently. We have to get out of here. You must know some way--"

  Harper again scribbled some figures on his pad. "As soon as I've worked out this formula--"

  Pillbot shook him frantically. "Can't you understand! This Creature is a mental patient of a violent type. We are in a fourth dimensional insane asylum!" Pillbot gazed upward fearfully at a descending mass. "The pattern of its action fits perfectly," he went on. "Some violent type of insanity, combined with delusions of grandeur. Any slightest opposition will cause a spasm of fury. It recognizes such opposition in the way you tricked it into bringing you here. At first I thought it was a primitive mentality, but now I know it is a highly evolved, but insane creature, thinks it's Napoleon, wants to conquer the three dimensional plane which its attention has been attracted to in some way--"

  Harper looked up in surprise. "Does it know about Napoleon?"

  "Of course not, you fool!" screamed Pillbot. "It has the Napoleonic complex, identifies itself with some great conqueror of its own realm. And now it's on the rampage. We have to get out of here--" He clutched at Harper as another upheaval of the surface threw them down.

  * * * * *

  Rising, Harper put away his pad. His calculations were complete. He could now show engineers how to build high buildings, taking advantage of space stress instead of trying to fight the stress.

  For the first time, the danger of their position seemed to penetrate to his consciousness. He looked about--and his eyes rested on a strange familiar projection rising from the invisible floor a few feet away. It was the section of his clay statue that had vanished--vanished because its peculiar shape had somehow caused it to be warped into the fourth dimension!

  Why hadn't he been able to move it--Professor Gault moved about freely.

  He and Pillbot went over to it, tried to move it. A slight filmy webwork around the projection caught Harper's eye. Now he knew--the Being had somehow affixed it to the spot as a landmark, so It could locate the laboratory. It must have been this projection that had first attracted the Being's attention to the three dimensional world, since, ordinarily, It would never have noticed the presence of three dimensional life, any more than humans would notice the presence of two dimensional life if such existed!

  Harper looked up at a bleat from Pillbot. Above them was a sudden furious play of lights and shades. Vast masses seemed shifting in crazy juxtapositions, now descending rapidly toward them.

  "Quick," Harper, now fully aroused, gasped to Pillbot. "Climb down this projection!"

  "Climb down it--?"

  "Yes, there is a fluid condition of space where it penetrates between the two planes. By hugging its contours you will emerge into the laboratory--I hope!"

  Pillbot glanced overhead nervously, then experimentally slid a font down the projection. The foot vanished. With a cry of relief, Pillbot lowered himself until only head and shoulders were visible. Then that too vanished.

  Harper looked up. Some monstrous suggestion of Form was almost upon him. He grasped the projection and just as his head sank out of sight the Form seemed to smash down on him.

  Pillbot helped Harper to his feet, from where he had sprawled at the base of the statue, on the laboratory floor.

  "Quick," he gasped. "The Creature will be infuriated now, by our escape from Its realm. A maniacal spasm is sure to follow. We must get Gault back in some way, then leave the laboratory."

  Even as they dashed over toward the abbreviated form of Gault, the laboratory shook. Invisible strains seemed to be bulging the walls inward.

  Harper rushed to the desk upon which still reposed the cutout, the section between neck and waist still arched off the surface. As Harper reached toward the cutout to press it flat, Gault's eyes widened, his mouth opened in a soundless shout of opposition. Harper hesitated.

  "Never mind him," yammered Pillbot. "Press the figure flat!"

  Harper pressed it flat.

  For an instant the laboratory stopped its ominous vibration. Then the figure of Gault flew through the air, came up against a wall--but it was his complete figure.

  "More signs of violence," cried Pillbot. "But that action won't appease It--we must get out of here--"

  Even as he spoke there was a thunderous crackling and roaring. Harper felt himself flying about, and for an instant of awful vertigo he did not know up from down. Forces seemed to be tearing at him. He felt as though he were a piece of iron being attracted simultaneously in several directions by powerful electro magnets.

  There was a flare of colored lights, a deafening detonation--and he felt himself knocked breathless against a wall.

  He picked himself up, looked around.

  * * * * *

  On one side of him was the familiar south wall of the laboratory. To the north, east and west was--open air. He was standing on a section of laboratory flooring that jutted out over empty space from the wall. His desk was a few feet away, right at the edge of the jutting floor. Gault and Pillbot were picking themselves up to one side of the desk.

  The pair looked over the edge of the floor, then recoiled, frenziedly hugging the flooring under them.

  Harper crawled over, looked over the edge, quickly backed away. Several hundred feet below, the traffic of the city roared!

  Gault went over to the door in the one wall, opened it, then stepped back quickly, his face pale.

  "The laboratory has been turned inside out!" he shouted. "We are on the outside!"

  "We must get away from here," squalled Pillbot. "Another spasm of the creature will precipitate us into the street!"

  Gault forgot his apprehensions long enough to freeze Harper with a glance. "This is all your doing," he bawled. "You with your absurd doodling, which attracted the attention of some Being of the fourth dimension!" In his anger, he overlooked the fact that he was contradicting his formerly held opinion.

  "The laboratory wrecked," he continued, "and that isn't all!" He stalked up to the cringing Harper, thrust his face toward him.

  "Do you know," he yelled, "why I didn't want to be returned hastily--why I didn't want you to bring me back by flattening out the paper cutout? You dolt, did you ever try to get a crease out of a piece of paper?"

  "I--I don't understand," murmured Harper.

  "That paper doll was creased, wasn't it?" shouted Gault.

  "Once a piece of paper is creased," he resumed heatedly, "it can't be perfectly flattened out again. At the crease a thin cross-section continues to bulge--into the third dimension in the case of that paper cutout. Into the fourth dimension in my case! I'm creased too, at the line where I was bent into the fourth dimension! Surely you aren't blind?"

  Harper staggered back as he saw it--a thin, horizontal line of light shining through Gault's body--across his waistline, through clothes and all.

  "I shall have to go through life this way," Gault snarled, "due to your imbecilic 'doodling', your meddling with what you don't understand. Go about constantly with a slit of daylight showing through me. You're fired!"

  "Gentlemen," cried Pillbot. "The entity--w
e must get away. Another spasm will surely follow--"

  Harper didn't think so. A few feet away he had noticed something--his statue lying on its side. It was all there, including the portion that had been in the fourth dimension. The Entity's "landmark" was gone. Harper didn't believe It would locate this particular area of the third dimension again.

  The scream of a fire siren rose up to them. As a ladder scraped over the projecting floor, Harper fondly felt the pad in his pocket with the formula on it. He wasn't worried now about having been fired. He was seeing visions of a small cottage with Judith....

  Of course, he would have to be careful in the future with his "doodling"! He could not again risk attracting the attention of some four dimensional Being--not with Judith to think about!

  * * *

  Contents

  A MATTER OF PROPORTION

  BY ANNE WALKER

  In order to make a man stop, you must convince him that it's impossible to go on. Some people, though, just can't be convinced.

  In the dark, our glider chutes zeroed neatly on target--only Art Benjamin missed the edge of the gorge. When we were sure Invader hadn't heard the crashing of bushes, I climbed down after him. The climb, and what I found, left me shaken. A Special Corps squad leader is not expendable--by order. Clyde Esterbrook, my second and ICEG mate, would have to mine the viaduct while my nerve and glycogen stabilized.

  We timed the patrols. Clyde said, "Have to wait till a train's coming. No time otherwise." Well, it was his show. When the next pair of burly-coated men came over at a trot, he breathed, "Now!" and ghosted out almost before they were clear.

  I switched on the ICEG--inter-cortical encephalograph--planted in my temporal bone. My own senses could hear young Ferd breathing, feel and smell the mat of pine needles under me. Through Clyde's, I could hear the blind whuffle of wind in the girders, feel the crude wood of ties and the iron-cold molding of rails in the star-dark. I could feel, too, an odd, lilting elation in his mind, as if this savage universe were a good thing to take on--spray guns, cold, and all.