Opening his eyes, he looked into warm golden light. Overhead, in a purple, starry sky, hung three globes, one larger than the Moon, the others slightly smaller. Satellites—but of another world, another universe!
He tried to stand but, with his wounded leg, it was impossible. A sandy shore rose just beyond him, reaching into the shadows of curious trees. He dragged himself out of the water and rested, trying to understand what had happened. His head hurt; the helmet was still in place.
His leg—The water had stanched the flow of blood. Nevertheless, Denham tore strips from his shirt and improvised a bandage. Luckily a tourniquet was not necessary; Maxwell’s bullet had not struck an artery. The task kept him occupied for a few minutes. Then he had time to think.
Seated on the sand, his lame leg stretched awkwardly before him, he stared around. Another world—
From his feet the clear waters of a lake stretched for perhaps a mile to the further shore. Zones of light lay across its surface. Far away, a building towered, immense and enigmatic. It was, Denham thought, like a gigantic rifle shell, cylindrical and tapered to a cone at the summit.
The golden moonlight was curiously vague, so that he could make out few details. Yet the structure was certainly as tall as the Empire State Building. This was no savage planet, then.
Planet! A wry smile twisted Denham’s lips. He was within the atom. He had gone down into infinitesimal smallness, reduced instantly by the incredible power of his ray-machine. As quanta had been liberated from his atomic structure, so he had shrunk, fantastically, to the size of a dwarf, a doll, an ant—and smaller still! Beyond the vanishing point, to human eyes!
Had the transformation not been so instantaneous, he might have seen the concrete floor of that Earthly room swell into a vast, rocky plain. Felt instability under his feet as he plunged down into smallness incredible. It was only lucky chance that had brought him to a planet in the vastness of the sub-atomic universe.
No—not chance, exactly. Gravitation must have played its part. As he shrank, he would naturally have been attracted to the nearest large body: this planet. It was a world, complete in itself; and, amazingly, it was part of the tiniest atom in the concrete floor on which he had stood such a short time ago.
Denham tilted back his head, staring up at the unfamiliar patterns of the stars. Up there—larger, to him, than the vastest giants of legend—were Maxwell and Lana!
Maxwell and Lana! And the killer’s gun pointed at the girl’s head, the hammer falling, ready to strike the revolver’s firing pin.
Some vague thought had been hammering at Denham’s consciousness even as he was sinking into darkness. What had it been?
Time. Relativity. So—what was happening now in that room under the Science Hall?
Nothing!
THE physicist cast back mentally, remembering his experiments, the pages of formulae he had worked out while developing his ray-machine. Time is relative. Einstein was only one of the many who had proved that.
There was the legend of Richard Wagner’s Tannhaüser, who had spent as he thought, a night in the caverns of Venusberg. He had emerged to find that, actually, decades had gone by. All folklore was filled with such tales, based on the relativity of time. There was Thomas the Rhymer, a dozen others. All telling of two worlds, in one of which time moved much faster than in the other.
On Earth, peering through an electronic telescope, one may see catastrophes within the atom. One may bombard sub-atomic universes. Split seconds, from human viewpoint. But in the region of infinite smallness, such galactic tragedies may take a hundred thousand years or more to happen.
On the atomic world where Denham was now, a hundred generations might live and die. In his own world, a second or a minute might not pass in that period. For time is relative, depending on size as well as on other factors.
There were objections, of course. Why would not inhabitants of a smaller planet, such as Mercury, live at a faster rate of time than humans? Why didn’t ants live faster? The answer, Denham thought, was obvious. In his own universe, all life was keyed to the entropic rate of that universe.
Entropy—the speed at which a universe runs down. The rate at which quanta—energy—is lost. An atom’s entropy would be far faster than Earth’s. Thus life upon it would move incredibly faster than on Earth.
It was supremely logical. For Lee Denham, the world he had left would remain unaltered. He might live and die within the atom, and perhaps only a minute or an hour would pass on the planet he had left.
The tableau under Science Hall was still motionless. Lana was racing toward Maxwell—frozen—the hammer still falling on Maxwell’s revolver. But insofar as Denham’s relationship to his own world above was concerned, his place in that world had been flung into a state of paralyzed stasis. He could, he knew, return at any time, taking up life there at the exact minute, if not the second, that he had left it.
But how long—
Finding a stick, he smoothed out the sand and made hasty calculations. He was handicapped, of course. There was no way of knowing a number of important factors. Yet at last Denham sighed and relaxed, satisfied.
He could spend at least a year here before the killer’s revolver spat death and carried the bullet into Lana’s head.
His eyes narrowed. In that time he must, somehow, find a way of preventing that murder!
But how? He could return to his own Earth instantly, but in exactly the same spot where he had left it, too far away in that room from Maxwell to save Lana. Perhaps if he could secure some weapon here, some shield—
Denham shrugged. There was time. He had a year’s grace. During that period he would bend all his energies to the task of saving Lana. Though the handicaps were fearful, the advantages were present also. The huge structure across the lake could not have been reared by uncivilized savages.
Here, within the atom, he might find scientific knowledge that would solve his problem for him.
But habit was strong. It seemed impossible that a year could pass within the atom while, on Earth, the hammer of a revolver fell so slowly. Only severe logic kept Denham calm. There was time.
He looked around. The landscape held the same shadowless, darkened clarity of the lake itself. Trees and bushes grew profusely back from the shore. He examined them, noting that they had unusually large leaves. That meant a smaller or a dimmer sun. The plants were green—chlorophyll. The chemistry of the sub-atomic world was not entirely alien.
There might be human beings here. It was not impossible. There exist a certain variety of life-patterns, and each develops in the most favorable environment. And this world was not too unlike Earth.
Abruptly the sheer wonder of what had happened swept over Denham. His heart beat faster. Staring across the twilit water of the lake, he could see three moon-paths converging luminously toward him. Some nocturnal flying creature skimmed the waves. Beyond, the shell-shaped structure towered, enigmatic and silent.
But this, Denham thought, was incredible. He was a scientist, a physicist in a New Jersey university. Just across the Hudson was New York, with Times Square and its myriad lights, subways roaring beneath, the light-band around the Times Building flashing news to the watchers. And here sat Lee Denham, on a sandy shore on a planet within an atomic universe—
He scooped up sand and let it trickle between his fingers. Were there yet other universes, inconceivably small—farther down? Briefly he felt a perverse impulse to touch the switch of his ray-projector and learn the truth. But no—that would not do.
The thought was staggering. Smallness beyond all imagination, beyond eternity! And, conversely, largeness—He checked his racing conjectures. A year was not a long time, really. During that period he must find a weapon, or a shield, capable of saving Lana from Maxwell’s bullet. Would that be possible?
“Well,” Denham said aloud, “I’ll just have to find out.”
HE WISHED his brother Steve were with him. Steve would know how to match wits with the perils that might ex
ist here. Denham had only logic, and science. And he must find a greater science than he had ever known.
First, though, he must find help. The tapered tower across the lake was apparently the nearest habitation. There might be others closer. But with his wounded leg, he could not climb a tree to find out. As for getting there—
“Not without a boat,” he mused. “And it’s a long walk around. Crawl, rather. Oh, well.”
His thin face set into grim lines. Painfully he dragged himself back into the bushes.
Presently he found a stick that would do for a crutch. Breathing hard—for Denham had lived an indoor life—he hobbled along the beach.
Three shadows paced him, cast by those golden moons. In the soft wind the trees whispered, and the lake swelled in long, slow ripples.
Suddenly Denham became aware that he was no longer alone. He sent a swift glance around, but saw nothing amiss. He froze, motionless, waiting.
The harmony of the faint night sounds had been broken. He strove to analyze the new noises. What were they? Breathing. The scarcely audible rustle of garments. The whisper of footsteps. Or had he imagined them?
THEN, behind him, he saw footprints on the beach. His own, and others—two sets. They ended a few yards from where he stood.
As he watched, more footprints appeared. Made by feet that were—invisible.
Denham moistened his lips. He had found science, indeed. Beings that seemed to walk upright, and were invisible.
“Hello, there,” he said, his voice a little husky. “I know you don’t understand English, but—but at least you’ll know that I have a language of my own!”
His hand lifted, palm out, in friendly gesture.
Footsteps thudded lightly on the sand.
Denham felt himself hurled back. Strong, invisible bodies smashed into him, bearing him down. Pain shot through his wounded leg. He cried out in protest, hearing an excited murmur of voices.
Something held him down. He tried to throw off his attackers, and then forced himself to relax.
A metal bottle, pear-shaped, sprang into visibility before him, uncapped. It was tilted and thrust against his teeth. He clamped them together. Instantly hard thumbs were pressed against the muscles at the corners of his jaws. His mouth opened unwillingly and hot, spicy fluid poured down his throat.
There was an instant of wrenching shock, and then consciousness left him.
CHAPTER IV
Varr
AFTER that came a time of selfless confusion, and dreams. Denham seemed shrouded in drugged slumber. His ego seemed to have gone completely. He knew, very vaguely, that he was being questioned. As though through a dark veil he heard himself talking, laboriously learning a language. He saw, now and again, the not entirely human face of a girl.
Then there came a time when the clouds rolled back. Denham was sitting on a couch, against cushions, staring about at a room from which all the illusions of his dream had vanished—except for the girl.
She had been no dream. She was the first thing he saw clearly, and he stared with the uninhibited intentness of a child as the mists of his slumber cleared away.
“So they are human!” he thought. And then: “No—not human!”
At a casual glance, there was nothing strange about the girl. She was small and lithe and well formed, clad in a tight-fitting pearl-gray garment like silk. Although, curiously enough, it gave the impression of fur’s rippling softness. Her hair was gray, like the tunic, but she was obviously not old. Again Denham thought of—fur.
Her features were regularly formed, with skin of honey-gold, and her mouth small and sweet. There was something patrician about that face, and very tender, too.
Her ears had little points, and her eyes were gold-green—with slit pupils.
Feline—feline! Suddenly Denham knew the answer. Evolution’s heir, on this atomic world, was not simian. This girl’s remote ancestors had been of a genus that was akin to the cats of Earth.
But she was not a cat—no!—any more than Denham was an ape. Eons of evolutionary progress had refined and specialized her race, till she was very obviously human. The accident that had made primates more intelligent than primeval insects—or saber-toothed tigers—had not occurred in this alien world. Possibly primates had never existed here.
This girl’s ancestors, perhaps, might have been forced to take refuge in trees, specializing in flight rather than in ferocity. Hands and fingers developed. The parallel was plain. She was not a cat—but her stock was feline!
Now she spoke, in perfectly intelligible syllables that were unlike any language Denham knew.
“If ever a man lied under the truth-drug, I would say you’ve been lying.”
He gaped at her. He understood, vaguely, what had happened. He had not been too deeply drugged to realize how much knowledge he had learned and imparted in the timeless interval just passed.
The girl’s voice was soft and purring.
“The truth-drug, Varr?” Denham asked.
He knew then that he, too, spoke in that strange language, and that he had used the girl’s name.
She smiled, though her eyes did not.
“You have been under its effects, Lee Denham, for twice a dozen revolutions of this world.”
More than three weeks, according to the time-rate of Varr’s planet. Involuntarily Denham looked at his leg, which was unbandaged. Gingerly he tested it.
“Your wound is healed,” the girl said.
She stood up, and impatiently began to pace about the room, a cubicle with walls draped by plain dove-gray curtains.
“The truth-drug is one of the secrets we have left, as well as the cloaks of invisibility. We know medicine, too. Your wound is healed now, yes. That does not matter.
“For two elads you have been in the twilight land of sleep, where the mind speaks only truth. I have learned your story. But now I have awakened you, for a drugged brain will not fit my needs. You can aid me in great measure, Lee Denham.” Slow anger was rising steadily in the physicist. So he had been kept unconscious with a variety of truth-serum, while the innermost secrets of his mind were dragged out by this half-human girl. Denham said quietly. “I’m not drugged now, you know.” Varr caught the implication. Her teeth showed.
“Then know this,” she said, the smoothness gone from her voice. “I—we—have saved your life! And at the risk of our own!”
“Why?”
VARR resumed her pacing.
“We have no time to talk now. We are in danger. We are outlaws. Lee Denham, and it is necessary for us to change our hiding places frequently. The Listeners have ways of ferreting out our secrets. How, I do not know. Their science is far beyond our small share.
“For elads we have kept you here, unable to move you in your drugged state; and now the Listeners have found us. That was why I awakened you, perhaps before it was wise.”
“Who are the Listeners?” Denham wanted to know.
“There will be time to ask questions later, if we live.” Varr paused to face Denham. “Even now, it may be dangerously late. We must get to another hiding place at once. Now will you trust me to guide you?”
Denham hesitated, trying to marshal his confused thoughts. He had vague memories of having talked with Varr before, though he had then been drugged. And he had learned a little—Varr suddenly had become motionless as fluid metal, listening. She went to the wall, flung back a drape and stared at a dial set in metal. Its needle gauge was quivering.
“Too close!” she said. “We have waited too long. They have surrounded this place.”
“Who?” Denham demanded. She flashed him an impatient glance. “The Listeners—the ones who have made my race their slaves. Well, we must take a greater risk. The rest of my group have already gone. We must join them, but there is only one way to pass the barrier.”
“What sort of barrier?” Denham was more puzzled by the moment.
Varr took a transparent little flask from her bosom.
“The Listeners have a
device that can detect thoughts.—That is, the force that the human brain emits. Come.”
She led the way into a corridor, behind one of the curtains.
A flat lens cupped in her hand gave out dim light.
Denham kept beside her.
His leg was completely healed, he discovered.
“We’ve something like that—” he began.
“In your world, yes. You have science there, of course.”
But Denham was still talking.
“The brain emits energy, and the Listeners can tune in on it, eh?”
She explained briefly. Denham’s brows were perplexed.
“I see,” he said. “Like magnetic mines. Except that mental energy, instead of magnetism, is involved.”
The tunnel twisted and turned endlessly.
“We are outlaws, as I say,” Varr went on. “The Listeners have scanning beams, rays that make solids transparent to them.”
“Television plus. Well?”
“They use those scanners,” the girl said. “This hiding place has been lined with a plastic impervious to the scanning rays. The Listeners could not watch us here, but they could discover that this hiding place existed. So they moved to surround it. We have our spies; we learned of the plot in time. The others have gone on ahead. We two are the only ones that are left.”
DENHAM glanced around him.
“Where does this tunnel lead?”
“To the forest above. I know what you are thinking. But the Listeners do not depend on sight alone. It is night now. We could escape easily, except for the thought-finders.”
“You mentioned those.”
Varr smiled mirthlessly.
“Very simply, thought-finders are compasses that point to the nearest source of mental energy. A killing beam is focused automatically in that direction. When we get close enough to be within range, our minds will be short-circuited—burned out.”
Denham hesitated.
“We’re heading right straight into trouble, then,” Denham said worriedly.
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