Weird Tales/Volume 9/Issue 4/Explorers Into Infinity
""The vehicle was out of control, pushing at the house like a great white giant."
Foreword
Some of my present readers will doubtless remember "The Girl in the Golden Atom."
When I wrote that book of the realm of infinite smallness there was in my mind its logical converse, the realm of the infinitely large. The one a complement to the other. And so I offer "Explorers Into Infinity," in no sense as a sequel to "The Girl in the Golden Atom," for fictionally they have no connection, but rather as its companion story.
You will find here a complete theory of the material universe as I conceive it may perhaps really be. To my own imagination—and I think very likely to your own—it is difficult to conceive of an infinite distance beyond the stars—empty Space stretching out forever. Nor is Einstein more satisfying to me, rather less so, for out beyond the Einstein system of curved Space must lie something or nothing. It is the nothingness which puzzles me. I have tried vainly to imagine a realm, infinitely large, of unending nothingness. Time is equally puzzling. I can conceive of eventful eons lying ahead of us; but rob that time of its future events and I flounder. To me at least, the conception of Time with nothing ever happening anywhere is impossible. To me also, an event presupposes the existence of something; and so, in my effort to imagine the infinitely large—Space illimitable, Time unending—I am forced to conceive what must fill that Space, what must happen to create that time.
You may call this tale fantastic, weird, bizarre. Doubtless it is. But with our most powerful microscopes reaching inward so tiny a distance to see no end in infinite smallness; our greatest telescopes groping futilely, out into largeness unending to our vision, what is left hut our imagination? And that, at least, we can send winging into the infinite!
I would not have you fear from this foreword that my story may be some pedantic, heavily technical exposition It is not; for it is fiction only—-a romance with which to entertain you; an effort, by using fictional methods, to reduce theories purely imaginative into concrete form with as great a degree of plausibility as may be. It is this only I desire: to carry you with me as you read; to make plausible this flight of our imaginations momentarily set free from the tiny everyday universe which is all we have physically to envisage.
Ray Cummings.
Chapter 1
Freedom in Time and Space
I was busy with the Martian mail which had just arrived when the message from Brett Gryce reached me. I did not apprehend that there was anything of secrecy about it, since he was using the open air; yet there was in his voice a note of tenseness and his summons was urgent.
"I can't come, Brett, until I get through the mail." I was rushed, and in a mood of ill-temper at the universe in general.
"When will that be?" he demanded.
"I don't know. It's accursedly large. Most of it seems to call for radio distribution—these Martians are always in a hurry."
"Come when you can," he said quietly.
"Tonight?"
"Yes—tonight. No matter how late—I must see you, Frank."
"I'll come," I said, and cut him off.
It was long past trinight, with dawn beginning to brighten the sky beyond the masonry of lower GreatNew York, when I had disposed of those miserable Martian dispatches. The Gryces lived in the Southern Pennsylvania area. My aerocar was at hand. I had rather planned to use it; but I was tired and in no mood for effort. I decided to take the pneumatic, since there was a branch—little traveled, it is true—which would drop me within some twenty kilometers of the Gryce home.
They gave me an individual cylinder, with a bed if I eared to sleep. I did not. I lay there wondering what Brett could want of me; pleased also that I would see Francine—dear little Frannie. . . .
Occasionally I would call the Director ahead. They are sometimes careless in the switching of special individual cylinders; and I had no wish to pass the branch and find myself bringing up at some gulf terminal with half the morning getting back. Once I called Brett. He would meet me with his aero at the end of the branch when I arrived. He, too, reminded the Director. A surly sort of fellow; the Gryces had already reported him to the General Traffic Staff of Great-London.
I was not misdirected, however; but it was broad daylight when I emerged to find Brett impatiently awaiting me. And in a few minutes more vre were landing at the aerostage beside the Gryce home.
It was a simple enough place—for all Dr. Gryce's reputed wealth. An estate of a few kilometers, set in a heavy grove of trees with a high metallic wall about it. The granite house itself was small, unpretentious. There were few outbuildings; one a large rectangular affair which vaguely I understood was a workshop. I had never been in it. I knew old Dr. Gryce was interested in science; in his day he had materially advanced civilization with several fundamental devices. But what—if anything—he might be doing now, I had no idea.
Brett would tell me nothing beyond the fact that his father had suggested they send for me. But he seemed excited, tense. Dr. Gryce greeted me with his familiar kindliness. Though I did not see as much of this family as I would like (my business with the Interplanetary Mails was wholly underpaid and miserably confining), yet I counted the Gryces among my closest friends.
Dr. Gryce said, "We are very glad to see you, Frank. Come outside. Frannie is preparing breakfast."
His manner was grave and quiet as always. But there was about him also an air of tenseness; and an aspect of apprehension. And it struck me, a sort of weary, resigned depression which suddenly made his years sit more heavily upon him. He was a man of some eighty odd; and though for him no more than twenty or thirty years of life could be anticipated, I had never considered him really old. He was small, slight of frame, but erect, sturdy and vigorous. A smooth-shaven face with no more lines upon it than a keen intellect and a character once wholly forceful would engrave. And a mass of snow-white shaggy hair to make his head appear preternaturally large.
He seemed old now, however, with that sense of depression hanging upon him. And an indefinable aspect of fear.
I must allot a word to picture the three children of Dr. Gryce, motherless since childhood. Brett was now twenty-eight—three years older than myself, and physically my opposite. I am short, slender and rather dark. And—so they tell me—not too even of temper. Brett was a blond young giant. Crisp, wavy blond hair, blue eyes and the strong-featured, ruddy face of a handsome athlete. But not too handsome, for there was upon him no consciousness of his essentially masculine beauty. He was wonderfully good-natured. His was a ready, hearty laugh. He looked at life often from the humorous viewpoint. But he had also a touch of his father's grave dignity; and a keen intellect and a soberness of thought and reason far beyond his years.
The two other children—Martynn and Francine—were twins, now just seventeen. Alike, physically and temperamentally, as children of a birth traditionally should be. Slim and rather small—Martynn about my height; Francine somewhat shorter. Both blue-eyed, with blond hair. Francine's hair was long-waving tresses which she wore generally in plaits over her shoulders; Martynn's was short and curly. They were rather alike of feature; a delicacy of mold which gave to Martynn a girlishness. But not an effeminacy, for he was a young daredevil; and his sister hardly a lesser one. In childhood and adolescence an impish spirit of deviltry had always seemed to possess these twins; a spirit of mischief which had made them a great trial to their father. It had turned, now that they were nearing maturity, into an apparent desire for reckless adventure—the product of abounding health, and bubbling, irrepressible good nature. They adored each other; were constantly together, with youthful escapades threatening limb and life and complete disaster, out of which they would emerge or be extricated with dauntless spirits unperturbed.
The greater maturity of womanhood at seventeen had brought to Frannie moments of gentleness, sweetness and a simple dignity. But they were brief moments, and no more than a word or look from her twin was needed to dispel them. Martt himself was without a vestige of dignity. But they were no fools, these twins. They could, upon strict necessity, give sober, intelligent thought to any problem at hand (Martynn had won honors at the Great-London University); but of sober, matured action they were incapable. Fearless—unreasonably fearless. But irresistible, likable, and apparently quite capable of being restrained. A word from Dr. Gryce, or from Brett—and to a lesser extent from me who had known them from childhood—brought instant though often very temporary obedience. They considered themselves quite grown up now. In truth, at seventeen, Frannie was to my eyes a really beautiful young woman.
II
We sat in a little arbor beside the house, with its breakfast table already laid. Dr. Gryce, Brett, and myself. Martt was with Frannie preparing the meal. It was evidence of the simplicity which marked the Gryce household. In these days of mechanical devices for almost everything—and the usual multiplicity of servants—there was not a meal prepared for Dr. Gryce save by his daughter.
I was very curious to learn why they had sent for me; but I had no need to question, for at once Dr. Gryce plunged into it.
"I hope, Frank, that you can stay—well, at least a few days with us. Can you?"
I stared. The Day Officer of the Manhattan Interplanetary Postal Division was undoubtedly already in a rage at my absence. I said so. "A few days? Dr. Gryce, I dread every conjunction that brings these accursed mails—my divisional officers think it's a crime even to eat or sleep when a planet is near us."
He smiled. "I imagine I can fix it."
"Then I'll stay, of course. If you could fix the planetary orbits so that they were parabolas, Dr. Gryce, it would suit me exactly."
He and Brett both were smiling, but Dr. Gryee's smile was momentary, for at once that indefinable air of trouble returned to him.
"Frank," he said, "I hardly know how to begin telling you what we have done—are about to do. It seems curious also—I know it will strike you so, you have been such a friend to me and my children—that during all these years we have given you no hint of our purpose."
"We have told no one," Brett put in: "no one in the world."
I said nothing, but my curiosity increased. It was doubtless of grave import, this thing they had to tell me; the solemnity, earnestness which stamped them both was unmistakable.
For a moment Dr. Gryce was silent; then he said abruptly, "You know, Frank, all my life I have been engaged with science. In a measure, I have been successful; there are a few devices which will bear my name when I am gone."
I nodded. "I know that very well, Dr. Gryce."
"But all those things," he added earnestly, "all that I stand for to the world, has really been of little importance to me. My main labor, goal, dream, if you will, I have never told anyone—not a living person except my children. For ten years past Brett has been helping me. And though you would hardly believe it, for the last year or two Martt and Frannie have been of material aid in the accomplishment of my purpose."
"What branch of science?" I asked. "And you've accomplished it? You're ready to give it to the world?"
"Accomplished it—yes. But we are not ready to give it to the world—perhaps we never shall. There would be evil in it—evil diabolical—in untrained or unscrupulous hands. But we are ready to test it—a practical test. Tonight, Frank, my boy Brett is going upon an adventure"
The fear which had been lurking in his eyes leaped to stamp his other features. He was afraid for Brett—afraid of this thing they were going to do. He had stopped abruptly; and more quietly he added:
"I want you to understand me, Frank, and so for a moment we must be wholly theoretical. This thing we are about to do involves the construction of our whole material universe. You know, of course, that no limit has been found to the divisibility of matter?"
His sudden question confused me. "You mean," I stammered, 44that things can be infinitely small?"
"That there is no limit to smallness," Brett put in. "An atom—an electron—they are mere words. Within them conceivably might be a space with stars, planets, suns—worlds of their own so tiny that compared to the Space in which they roam that Space would seem—and would be—illimitable. Picture that, Frank. And picture upon one of those worlds inhabitants of proportionate smallness. What would they see, feel or think of the universe? Would they not conceive it about as we do? Picture them with powerful microscopes, looking downward into the matter composing their world. They would be aware of molecules, atoms—they would gaze down into Space unending. Another realm within their own. And within that one—others and yet others to infinity. The conception confuses you, Frank? It need not. Each of those realms is tiny—or large—according to the viewpoint. There can be no such thing as absolute size."
"That is what I mean," Dr. Gryce interrupted eagerly. "Absolute size—how can you conceive it? You can not. A thing is large or small only in relation to something else smaller or larger."
He waved his hand to the rolling landscape with the morning light and shadow upon it, visible through the arbor.
"There is our everyday world, Frank. How big is it? You can not say. Millimeters, meters, kilometers, helans, light-years—those are only words with which we designate a comparison. Compared to what our microscopes show us, this world of ours is* very large, but compared to the spaces between the stars—the stars themselves—it is very small. Try then to imagine its absolute size. You can not, because there is no such thing. A universe within what we call an atom—another realm within an atom of matter upon one of the worlds of that universe—is not an extraordinary state of smallness until we compare it with ourselves.
"And this world of ours. It is normal to us; of no absolute size whatever—neither large nor small—until we compare it to something else. But suppose we visualize larger realms? Suppose we say these planets, stars—all the starry universe within our ken and this visual space which contains them—suppose we imagine all that to be contained within the atom of a particle of matter of some comparatively still larger realm? At once our world and ourselves shrink into smallness. Where a moment ago we had seemed large, now we seem small. Yet that other gigantic world within which we are contained—if we could live in it our telescopes would show us still larger Space unending. We would feel tiny—and of actuality we would be tiny—contemplating Space and size so much larger."
"And there you have infinity of Space," Brett added, as his father paused. "Unending Space both smaller and larger than ourselves. We—everything of which we can be physically aware—represent no more than a single step in the ladder which has no bottom nor no top. You can not conceive an end in either direction. There is no such thing. Nor—as Father says—can you declare anything to be small or large considered by itself alone. This then is Space as we conceive it to be. Illimitable, unending—infinite Space."
The conception momentarily seemed wholly beyond my grasp. What I would have answered when for a moment Dr. Gryce and Brett paused I do not know, for from the house the approaching voices of Martt and Frannie reached us.
"You'll fall, I tell you! Frannie, give me that!"
"I won't."
"You'll trip over the wires and you'll fall and smash it!"
"I won't."
The sound of a crash. And Martt's voice, "There, I told you!"
They were upon us, wheeling the tray laden with breakfast; Martt, flushed, laughing. "Oh, hello, Frank—they didn't switch you wrong, did they? Frannie broke the heater coils—if the breakfast gets cold, don't blame me."
And Frannie, also flushed and laughing and a trifle rueful over the mishap. Dressed in a blue blouse and widely flaring, knee-length trousers, with her golden hair tossing on her shoulders. The picture of a little housewife, of early morning informality. I thought I had never seen her so beautiful.
III
"That, Frank, is our conception of the infinity of Space."
With breakfast finished Brett had resumed the discussion. We were all seated in the arbor. Martt and Frannie momentarily were quiet, seemingly keenly interested in the impression upon me which they anticipated would come from their father's disclosures.
Dr. Gryce said, "The idea of Time unending is indissolubly bound with the concept of infinite Space. You will realize, Frank, for some centuries it has been understood that Time and Space are inextricably blended. We think instinctively of Space as a tangible entity—of length, breadth and thickness. And of Time, as intangible. Such really is not the case. Space has three dimensions—but Time also has a dimension."
"Length," Martt put in. "It sounds like a play on words, but"
"It isn't," Frannie finished for him. "I can't imagine anything clearer than that Time has length."
Dr. Gryce ignored them. "You must understand also that Time as we conceive it can not exist except as the measurement of a length between two events. And what is an event? It presupposes the existence of Matter, does it not? Matter thus is introduced into the universe. It also can not be independent of Time and Space. So long as anything material exists, there must be Space for it to exist in; and Time to mark the passing of its existence.
"Of our universe, then, we now have Matter, Time and Space. There is a fourth—shall I say, element? It also is interdependent with each of the other three. It is Motion. You know, of course, that there can be no such thing as absolute Motion."
"Or absolute Time," Frannie put in.
"That we will discuss later," Dr. Gryce said quickly, "since it is more intricate of conception. Absolute Motion is impossible and non-existent. We can say a thing moves fast or slowly, only in relation to the movement of something else. One word more. I want you to realize, Frank, how wholly dependent each of these factors is upon the other. Matter, for instance, is an entity persisting in Space and Time. Motion is the simultaneous change of the position of Matter in Space and Time. A thing was here, then; it is there, now. That is Motion. You see how you can not deal with one without involving the others?"
"Say, Father, why don't you tell him what we're going to do?" Martt demanded. "Frank, listen—tonight Brett and I"
"But I'm going, too," Frannie declared.
"You're not!"
I saw again that look of fear in old Dr. Gryce's eyes. His children—the spirit of youth with its lust for adventure—they were eager and excited. But Dr. Gryce saw beyond that—saw the danger. . .
He said gravely, "There is no possibility of my making you understand the details, Frank, until we have gone into the matter thoroughly. But as Martt implies, you are no doubt impatient. I will tell you then, briefly, that for most of my life I have been delving into this subject—Matter, Space, Time and Motion illimitable. Longing to investigate this immense material universe which I believe exists. But we humans are fettered, Frank. Like an ant, living for a brief moment enchained with a cobweb to a twig and trying to envisage the earth."
His voice now was trembling with emotion. "I was satisfied to see with my own eyes some little part into infinity. I invented what we—my children and I—call the myrdo-scope. I will explain it presently. Suffice it now to say that there are normally invisible rays, akin to light, crossing Space, and I have made them visible. We captured them—saw after a myriad trials unavailing, occasional vague glimpses of the beyond which came to us. It might have satisfied me, but three years ago, one night, Brett saw"
He paused, looking at Brett. Martt and Frannie were breathless, with eyes fixed on me.
Brett said, and his voice had a queer, solemn hush to it, "I was looking through the myrdoscope. We had seen blurred, brief glimpses of a realm"
"Beyond the stars," Frannie breathed.
"Yes, beyond the stars. A realm seemingly of forest, or something growing. Silvery patches—you might imagine they were water, or light shining upon something that glistened. They were always haphazard, these glimpses. We caught them, not always from one direction—seemingly from everywhere. A realm encompassing—enclosing—our whole star-filled Space.
"With the labor of years, which you, Frank, will appreciate to some degree, Father has charted what for our own little ken we might call absolute points in Space. Landmarks, say, of this outer realm. With our whirling earth, the ever-changing planets and stars, only this outer realm seemed of fixed position. We could sometimes return our gaze to the same landmark—a tremendous crescent-shaped patch of silver, for instance, which several times we succeeded in re-finding.
"It was near this patch at which I was one night gazing, when through some vagary of the ray bearing its image—or some difference in our crude apparatus—the scene suddenly clarified. And magnified as though at once I had leaped a million light-years toward it.
"I saw then a magnified section of the larger scene. The patch of silver appeared now as a shimmering, opalescent liquid. A segment of shore-front; and this all in a moment, again magnified. Upon a bluish bank of soft vegetation, with the opal liquid beside it, I saw a girl half reclining. A girl of human form, but transfigured by a beauty more than human. A girl of a civilization behind our own—or perhaps one in advance—I do not know. She was robed in a short, simple garment more like a glistening, glowing silver veil than a dress. Her hair was long—a tangled dark mass. She reclined there in an attitude of ease and the abandonment of maidenly solitude. I say that she was more than beautiful—oh, Frank"
Brett's voice had suddenly lost the precise exactitude of the scientist. He seemed to have forgotten his father—Martt and Frannie; it was as though he were confiding his human emotions only to me.
"Beautiful, Frank. A strange, wild beauty, with a curious ethereal aspect to it. I don't know—it's indescribable. Human—half human, but half divine."
He checked himself; the scientist in him again became uppermost; but though he now spoke with careful phrasing, his face remained flushed.
"It was some moments before I saw additional details. And then I realized that the girl was not alone. Upon her bare feet were a sort of sandal with thongs crossing the ankle. And standing there beside one of her feet were two tiny human figures. In height, the length perhaps of her little foot. Men of human form; yet queerly grotesque; misshapen. One of them was in the act of reaching upward toward the tassel of her sandal cord where it dangled from her ankle; reaching as though to grasp it and draw himself upward. The other was watching; and both were grinning with gnomelike malevolence.
"Nor was this all, for behind the girl, a brief distance away in what appeared a woodland dell, was another figure—a man of aspect akin to the grinning gnomes, save that in comparative size even to the girl he was gigantic. Ten times her height, perhaps, he stood behind her towering into the trees about him. A man of short, squat legs, dark with matted hair; a garaient like the gnomes', which might have been an animal skin; a heavy massive chest; black hair long to his neck. A face with clipped hair upon it. He was regarding the girl; a grin, but with a leer to it—horribly sinister. And in his great hands, brandished like a bludgeon, was an uprooted tree.
"Have I given you an idea of motion in the scene? There was none. The girl was obviously wholly unaware that she was not alone. She lay motionless. But the lack of movement in her—in them all—was more marked than that. The girl's lips were parted in a half-smile of revery; but the outlines of her bosom beneath the silver veil did not move. There was no movement of breath; no change of expression. The gnomes, the giant—not the minutest change could I see mirrored in their faces.
"Yet it was so lifelike, I could not doubt it was life—and that the motion was there though I could not see it. I watched all night, shaken with this fragment of drama, perhaps tragedy, which I was witnessing—but even the girl's eyelids did not tremble. Dawn came; the scene faded.
"For a month I did not even tell Father; and Frank, the vision of that girl has never left me. The menace—gruesome, sinister—upon her—and her beauty"
"Haven't you ever seen her again?" I asked eagerly. "Was it life? How could it be life without motion?"
"Oh, he saw her again," Martt exclaimed. "I've seen her—we've all seen her."
"Tell him, Brett," Frannie urged.
"A month before I even told Father. During it, I searched for the scene unavailing, then Father and I searched together. It was a year, when almost from the same orbital position we came upon the scene again. A year—and now we saw a change. The figures all were there, frozen into immobility as before. But the gnome had caught the tassel, had drawn himself partly up to stand upon the girl's white ankle. The giant had come a trifle forward, and the upraised tree in his hands was partly lowered. The girl's attitude was unchanged, but there was now upon her face the vague dawn of startled knowledge, as though at that instant she was becoming aware of something pulling at her sandal cord, something touching her ankle—perhaps too, she was hearing a sound from the giant behind her. The startled knowledge which as yet had not had time fully to register upon her face."
My mind was whirling with a confusion of thoughts; the vague comprehension of what Brett meant was coming to me. I stammered, "Not yet had time—but Brett, you must have watched them all that night"
"That night, Frank. And others—but there was no sign of movement. Another year—that was last year—we saw the girl partly aware of her danger. This year—a month ago—she was fully aware of it. Frightened—her eyes stricken wide with terror. But she had had no time as yet to move.
"Don't you understand, Frank? That drama is going on out there now. Like size of Matter and Space—and rate of Motion—there is no absolute Time. It is all comparative. To that realm out there of which we have been given a little vision, our tiny worlds here in the heavens are mere whirling electrons, like the electrons within one of our own atoms which to our consciousness of Time revolve many times a second.
"A year! A single revolution of our earth about its sun! To that girl out there, what we call a year is merely an electron in a fraction of a second revolving about its fellow. Even that is very slow—for she herself is wholly within the atom of a greater world outside her. A year as we call it—a second or less, to her. And though she is in full movement, how can we hope to see it by watching for a night? If a year were a second to her—an eight-hour vigil of ours would encompass less than a thousandth part of a second of her life!
"All comparative, Frank. There is nothing wonderful or really strange about it. In what we would experience to be a hundred years from now that girl will be fully faced with the menace of her assailants. A moment only, to her consciousness. It is that, Frank, we meant by the infinity of Time."
"Tell him what we're going to do," Martt insisted breathlessly.
It came from Brett in a burst almost incoherent. "I was not satisfied merely to see into this comparative infinity. Nor was Father. We have worked three feverish years, Frank, to climax all the labor of Father's which had gone before. And we have found a way—not merely to see, but to transport ourselves into these greater realms. A vehicle—I'll show you—explain it all. Its size can be changed—the state of the matter imposing it is within our control. Its position in Space can be changed—simple enough, Frank, to enlarge upon the principles of our interplanetary vehicles. And—with one factor so interdependent upon the other—we have been able to control the rate of its Time-progress. It travels through Time as it does through Space."
His words were tumbling over each other. "You'll see it in a moment, Frank—test it—we have it here, ready yesterday. It sets us free, don't you understand? Free at last in Space and Time. And I'm going in it tonight—with Martt perhaps—we're going out to reach that girl upon an equality of Size and Time-progress. Going out to explore infinity!"
Chapter 2
"This Could Destroy the Universe"
I had anticipated that they would show me a vehicle similar perhaps to the huge and elaborate space-flyers in the service of our Interplanetary Postal Division. But instead of taking me to the workshops where I had conceived it to be lying—serene, glistening with newness, intricate with what devices for its changing of size and Time-rate I could not imagine—instead of this they took me into the house. And there, in Dr. Gryce's quiet study with its sober, luxurious furnishings and his library of cylinders ranged in orderly array about the walls, I saw not one but four machines—mere models standing there on the polished table-top. Four of them identical—all of a milk-white metal.
But they were models complete in every detail. I stood beside one, regarding it with a breathless, absorbed interest as Dr. Gryce commented upon it. A cube of about the length of my forearm in its three equal dimensions, with a cone-shaped tower on top—a little tower not much longer than my longest finger. The cube itself had a rectangular doorway, and in each face two banks of windows. The door slid sidewise, the windows were of a transparent material, like glass. Midway about the cube ran a tiny balcony at the second-story level. It was wholly enclosed by the glasslike material. It extended around all four sides; small doors from it gave access to the cube's interior. The cone on top also had windows, and its entire apex was transparent.
I bent down and peered into the lower doorway. Tiny rooms were there. Bedrooms; a cookery—a house complete, save that it was wholly unfurnished. The largest room on the lower story—its floor had a circular transparent pane in it—was fitted with a seemingly intricate array of tiny mechanisms all of the same milk-white metal. A metallic table held most of them; and I could see wires fine as cobwebs connecting them. And in a corner of this room, a metallic spiral stairway leading to the upper story.
Dr. Gryce said, "That is the instrument room, complete. It contains every mechanism for the operation of the vehicle. We made it in this size—large enough to facilitate construction, but it is small enough to be economical of material. This substance—we have never named it—is of our own isolation. It is expensive. I'll explain it presently. . . . That room beside the instrument room is where we will put the usual everyday instruments necessary to the journey. Oxygen tanks—the apparatus for air purification and air renewal; telescopes, microscopes—my myrdoscope—all that sort of thing we can best obtain in its normal size. Those—and the furnishings—the provisions—all those in their normal size wo will put into it later."
"You mean," I asked, "this is not a model? This is the actual vehicle?"
"Yes," he smiled.
"But there are four of them."
"We made six, Frank. It was advisable, and not unduly difficult to duplicate the parts in the making. The assembling took time"
Brett said, "Father was insistent that we make every advance test possible. We have already used two of them. We are going to test the others today."
"Now," exclaimed Frannie. "Do it now—Frank will want to see it."
Dr. Gryce lifted one of the vehicles. In his hand it seemed light as alemite. He placed it on a taboret and we sat grouped around it.
"I shall send it into Time," he said quietly, "with its size unchanged, with no motion in Space, so that always in relation to us it will remain right here—I am going to send it back into other ages of Time." He turned to me earnestly. "We wanted you here, Frank, because you are so good a friend to me and my children. But for a selfish reason as well. When Brett goes out into Space and Time tonight, I want your keen eye to follow him. Your ability to record so accurately on the clocks what you see at any given instant"
He was referring to my experience at the Table Mountain observatory—my first work when my training period was over. I had, indeed, a curiously keen vision for astronomical observation, and a quickness of finger upon the clock to record what I saw. In transit work I was extremely accurate; even now they were asking the Postal Division for my services at Table Mountain in the forthcoming transit of Venus.
Dr. Gryce was saying, "Your accuracy is phenomenal, Frank—your figures as you observe what little we see of this flight will help me—set my mind at rest that Brett is making no errors." He ended with a smile, "So you realize we have a selfish motive in wanting you."
"I'm very glad," I responded. He nodded and went back at once to what he had been saying previously. "I'm going to send this into Time. You must understand, Frank, that I can give you now only the fundamental concepts underlying this apparatus. We have so much to do today—so little time for theory. I need only tell you that it is readily demonstrable that Time is one of the inherent factors governing the state of Matter. This substance we have discovered—created, if you will—yields readily to a change of state. An electronic charge—a current akin to, but not identical with electricity—changes the state of this substance in several ways. A rapid duplication of the fundamental entities within its electrons—they are, as you perhaps know, mere whirlpools of nothingness—this rapid duplication adds size. The substance—with shape unaltered—grows larger. With such a size-change there comes a normal, correspondingly progressive change of Time-rate. We had to go beyond that, however, and secure an independent Time-rate, independently changeable, so that the vehicle might remain quiescent in size and still change its Time. In doing that, the state of the matter as our senses perceive it is completely altered. As you know, no two bodies can occupy the same space at the same time. Which only means that with the Time-dimensions identical, different dimensions of Space are needed. With the Timedimension differing—the state of Matter is different; two bodies thus can be together in the same space."
"What is a Time-dimension?" I asked. "I mean—how can you alter it?"
"I would say, Frank, that the Time-dimension of a material body is the length—or a measure of the length—of its fundamental vibration. Basically there is no real substance as we conceive it—for all Matter is mere vibration. Let us delve into substance. We find Matter consists of molecules vibrating in Space. Molecules are composed of atoms vibrating in Space. Within the atoms are electrons, revolving in Space. The electrons are without substance, merely vibrations electrically negative in character. The nucleus—once termed proton—is all then that we have left of substance. What is it? A mere vortex—an electrical vortex of nothingness!
"You see, Frank, there is no real substance existing. It is all vibration. Motion, in other words. Of what? That we do not know. Call it a motion of disembodied electrical energy. Perhaps it is something akin to that. But from it, our substantial, tangible, material universe is built. All dependent upon its vibratory rate. And the measure of that I would call the Time-dimension. When we alter, that—when through the impulse of a current of vibration we attack that fundamental vortex to make it whirl at greater or lesser rate—then we, in effect, have changed the Time-dimension."
There was so much that seemed dimly close to my understanding, and yet eluded me!
"But," I said, "if you send that little cube back into Time, it will no longer exist at all. It will be in the past—non-existent now. Or suppose you send it into the future? It will exist sometime—but now, it will be non-existent."
"Ah, that's where you're wrong," Brett exclaimed. "Don't you realize that you're making Time absolute? You're taking yourself and this present instant as fixed points of Space and Time—the standards beyond which nothing else can exist. That's fatuous. Frank, look here, it's simple enough once you grasp it. Time and Space are quite similar, except that you have never moved about in Time but you have in Space. Suppose you had not. Suppose—with your present power of thought—you were this house. You had always been here—always would be here. Suppose, too, that the world—the land and water—moved slowly past you, at an unalterable rate. That's what Time does to us. Then suppose I were to say to you—you as the house—'Let us go now to Great-London.' That would puzzle you. You would say, 'Great-London was here a year ago. But now it is gone—non-existent. It did exist—but now it doesn't.' Or you would say, 'The shore of the Great-Pacific Ocean will be here next year.' If I said, 'I'm going there now,' you would reply, 'But you'll be in the future. You'll be non-existent!' Making yourself the standard of everything. Don't you see how fatuous that is?"
I did not answer. It was so strange a mode of thought; it made me feel so insignificant, so enslaved by the fetters of my human senses. And these fetters Brett was very soon to cast off.
II
Martt said, "Can't we make the tests, Father? There is a frightful lot to do and it's nearly midmorning already."
From the table Dr. Gryce took a small rod of the milk-white metal—a rod half a meter long and the diameter of my smallest finger. He knelt on the floor beside the taboret, peering into the tiny doorway of the mechanism he was about to send winging into the distant ages of our Past. Again we were breathless.
"More light, Frannie," he said. "I can not see inside here." Frannie illumined the tubes along the ceiling; the room was flooded with their soft, blue-white light.
"That's better." Rod in hand he turned momentarily to me. "I'm going to throw the Time-switch by pressing it with this rod," he explained. "Within the vehicle—the confined space there—the current is equally felt." He smiled gravely. "Without the rod I should lose a finger to the Past"
Carefully he inserted the rod into the doorway. A moment of fumbling, then I heard a click. The little milk-white model seemed to tremble. It glowed; from it there came a soft, infinitely small humming sound. It glowed, melted into translucency—transparency. For an instant I had a vague sense that a spectral wraith of it was still before me. Then with a blink of my eyelids I realized that it was gone. The taboret was empty. Beside it, Dr. Gryce knelt with the rod melted off midway of its length in his hand.
I breathed again. Brett said softly, "It is gone, Frank. Gone into the Past, relative to our consciousness of Time. Gone from our senses—yet it is here—occupying the same Space it did before—but with a different Time."
He passed his hand through the apparent vacancy above the taboret. To me then came a realization of how crowded all Space must be! Of what a tiny fraction of things existent—of events occurring—are we conscious! That Space over the taboret—empty to me. . . . yet it held for a mind omniscient an infinity of things strewn through the ages of the Past and Future. What multiplicity of events—unseen by me—Time was holding separate in that crowded Space above the taboret!
Dr. Gryce was saying, "Let us test one now by sending it into smallness—come here, Frank."
He had risen to stand by the table, with another of the models before him. "This bit of stone," he said. "Let us send it into that."
He laid a flat piece of black-gray, smoothly polished stone on the table near the model. And with another rod he reached into the doorway. Again I heard a click. He withdrew the rod. "You see, Frank."
I saw that the rod was slightly compressed along the length he had inserted. The model was already dwindling. Soundlessly, untremblingly—it was contracting, becoming smaller, with shape and aspect otherwise unchanged. Soon it was the size of my fist. Dr. Gryce picked it up, rested it upon his opened hand. But in a moment it was no more than a tiny cube rocking in the movement of his palm. He gripped it gingerly with thumb and forefinger and set it on the polished black slab of stone. Its milk-white color there showed it clearly. But it was very small—smaller than the thumb-nail of my little finger. The cone-shaped tower was a needle-point.
A breathless moment passed. It was now no more than a white speck upon the black stone surface.
Brett said, "Try the microscope, Frank. You watch it."
I put the low-powered instrument over it; Brett adjusted the light. The stone was smoothly polished. But now, under. the glass, upon a shaggy mass of uneven rock surface I saw the vehicle visually as large as it had been originally. But it was dwindling progressively faster. Soon it lay tilted sidewise upon a slope of the rock; smaller—a tiny speck clinging there.
"Can you still see it?" Brett murmured.
"Yes—no—now it is gone." The rock seemed empty. Somewhere down in there the little mechanism lay dwindling. Forever it would grow smaller. Dwindling into an infinity of smallness; but always to be with things of its size—and things yet smaller. . . .
As I turned from the glass, I be-came aware that Martt and Frannie were not in the room. Dr. Gryce and Brett, absorbed in the test, quite evidently had not noticed them leave. There had been two other models on the table—there was now but one.
Then from the garden outside the house a cry reached us. A shout—a cry of fear—terror. Martt's voice.
"Father! Brett! Help us! Help! Quick!"
We rushed from the room. Crowning wonder, yet horrible! A surge of fear swept me. In the garden quite near the house stood the other model. Small no longer. It had grown—was growing—until already it was as large as the house itself. Around it the flowers, shrubs, even a tree had been pushed and trampled by its expanding bulk. It stood gleaming white in the sunlight, motionless save for that steady, increasingly rapid growth. Its windows and doors loomed large dark rectangles; its balcony was broad as a corridor; its cone tower was already reared higher than the nearest trees.
"Father! Help!"
At the doorway of the vehicle, standing just outside it, were the terror-stricken Martt and Frannie. They were holding the end of a long metallic pole which projected into the doorway. Struggling with its weight, striving to throw the switch inside.
We reached them. The expanding bulk of the gleaming side of the vehicle had pushed them back into a thicket of shrubbery. Near them a tree, uprooted as though it were a straw sticking upright in sand, was pushed aside and fell with a crash. Martt and Frannie were livid with terror; breathless, almost exhausted with their futile efforts.
Martt panted, "We can't—lift the pole! It's—too heavy—too large inside."
Within the huge doorway, by the sunlight streaming through the windows, I could see the interior half of the pole, bloated by growth, huge, heavy.
Brett shoved Frannie away. "Frank! Here—take hold with us."
Dr. Gryce was with us. Together we four men got the interior end of the pole upon the table inside. A tremendous switch lever was there. But the pole slipped, rolled down. I expected it to break at the doorway point where it was so small outside, but it did not. The expanding doorway had pushed us farther back. Another tree on the other side fell. Above us the vehicle's tower loomed like a cathedral spire. Tremendous now, the vehicle had grown until it was almost touching the house. A fence had been trampled, had vanished beneath its giant bulk.
And the growth was increasingly rapid. If we could not check it. . . If it got wholly beyond control—this monster, growing. . . forever growing, to a size infinitely large—larger than our earth itself. . . .
I must have been standing stupidly confused. I heard Dr. Gryce imploring, "Take hold of it, Frank! We must lift it. We must—our last chance"
But Brett pushed us away. "I'm going inside. I can move the switch—let go of me, Father! That switch switch—it isn't too big yet—but it will be in a minute. Let goof me!"
"No! No, Brett! The shock as you went in—you couldn't take it so suddenly. It might hurt you—kill you. And the switch is too big for your strength."
It was out of control—this monster, growing, inexorably growing—it was pushing at the house—a great white giant pushing gently but with an irresistible power at the little toy house beside it. I could see the house shifting on its foundations; a corner of it tilted downward.
"Brett! Father! Try it now. One last try." Martt and Frannie had the pole again in position. With a last despairing effort we raised it; slid it up over the giant table-edge; caught the wide flaring side of the giant switch. Pushing—despairingly; five of us, pigmies struggling there at that giant threshhold. The switch moved. Our pole held its place; the switch moved farther, clicked with a tremendous snap that reverberated about us. The growth of the monster was checked. It stood there serene, triumphant, with the little house, tilted, but still standing bravely beside it.
White, shaken, we ceased our efforts. Frannie gasped, "We—we only wanted to make it a normal size—so you could load it up with the furniture and things. But it—it got away from us„"
Dr. Gryce said, "It is a lesson—perhaps a lesson which we needed forced upon us." He gestured to the great quiescent white building which had spread itself over most of the devastated garden. "A lesson," he repeated. "We must guard this power carefully. In unskilled or unscrupulous hands it is a power for evil almost unthinkable. This monster here—if it had gotten beyond us—if we had lost its control—this could destroy the Universe!"
Chapter 3
Explorers Into Infinity
"You think we've got everything in it?" Frannie asked anxiously.
We had gotten the vehicle back to a size normal to our own stature; and all day had been working to equip it. The instrument room—its Space and Time and size mechanisms were complete. I had learned now that it was to be transported through Space by very similar principles to those commonly in use—a controlled attraction or repulsion of the faces of its cube for the heavenly body nearest to it; in effect, an intensification—a neutralization—or reversal at will of the electronic force which flows between and mutually attracts all material bodies; the force which once—in centuries past—was called gravitation. It needed no word of explanation. Its velocity and distance dials, its direction indicators, were familiar, though rather more intricate than those I had seen in the Interplanetary Service. Beyond that, there was a bank of dials upon which a changing size was recorded—with the vehicle's present starting dimensions to be the standard unit. And other dials for its Time-change. Of these there were two distinct sets. One, a record of the normal Timechange, inevitable to a change of size; another, a comparison of that Time-distance with the normal Timeprogress of the earth, so that the Time-position of the vehicle into the earth's Past or Future could be seen.
In a subsidiary instrument-room was a variety of modern astronomical apparatus; the myrdoscope, and a receiver for an aural ray which, as a guide to Brett, Dr. Gryce was to send from earth. Of this, in more detail, they later explained.
In a smaller room were the apparatus for air renewal, the making of various necessary gases, water and synthetic foods; a store-room of provisions; rooms furnished comfortably so that the vehicle was complete in its living quarters. A thousand details, until at the last I felt as Frannie did—wondering how we could have failed to overlook a score of things we had intended to do.
It was nightfall when we finished; and all that evening we spent checking up the equipment. Dr. Gryce's home had not been seriously damaged by the morning's mishap; and as midnight approached we gathered in the little observation and instrument room he had built in its upper story. Brett and Martt, it had been decided, were to make the journey; we others were to watch and wait. It seemed the more difficult role. All that evening Dr. Gryce had been increasingly silent, careworn of manner and aspect. And though Brett was excited in his mature, repressed fashion—and Martt frankly exuberant—I saw that little Frannie was solemn, perturbed as her father.
It was a soft, brilliant, cloudless night, with no moon to pale the gleaming stars. And at last every detail was settled, and the midnight hour we had set for departure was at hand. We went forth with them to the waiting vehicle. There was nothing more to say. They stood—Brett and Martt—in the opened doorway as we gathered about them.
"Well—good-bye, Father—goodbye, Frannie dear." Brett held her close; then released her, pushed her away. "Good-bye, Frank." His hand-clasp was warm and steady.
Martt was jocular, but now at the last I could hear a tremble to his voice. "When we get to that girl out there—well, I'm going to tell her how interested you all are in her." His laugh was high-pitched. "That is, if we can handle that giant."
"Good-bye, Brett. Good-bye, Martt."
Our words were so futile, so inadequate to the surge of feeling within us! The door slid closed upon them. The vehicle, not to change size until it was far into the realms of outer interstellar Space, beyond our crowding little planets—lifted gently, soared upward, slid away from us, a glistening white shape up there in the quiet starlight.
Gravely, silently, with what sinking of heart I could only imagine, Dr. Gryce stood regarding it. Beside me Frannie was crying softly.
Explorers into infinity! And they were gone, to encounter—what?
The marvels of the voyage through Space and Time, and the search for the girl in that vaster world, to rescue her from her danger, will be described next month.
Coming!
The Time-Raider
By Edmond Hamilton
A startling four-part serial by the author of "The Metal Giants" and "The Atomic Conquerors"—a tale of an entity from thousands of years in the future that reaches back through Time to seize its victims. No more fascinating wordpicture has ever been drawn than the thrilling narrative of the pursuit of the Raider through the future of this world, as the Sun grows cold and the Earth withers.
Watch for this story in
Weird Tales