"Well, what happened?" asked Lane.
"You tell me," Downing said.
"Obviously something gave--but quick," remarked Billy. "The question
is: What could give?"
"The star didn't. We weren't on the planet. Whatever gave--we are a
long way from where we started, at any rate." Hendricks scratched
his head in puzzlement. "You don't suppose we have gone and warped
ourselves right out of space, do you?"
"That sounds like a comic book plot. I'm not taking any odds-on bets,
though. Have you got an air condenser and a resistance-capacity bridge?
Not the kind that compares a standard condenser against the unknown
in terms of the resistance ratio arms, but one of the cheap varieties
that merely compares the resistance ratio arms against the ratio of
resistance versus capacitive reactance."
"Uh-huh."
"Is it calibrated to within an inch of its eyebrows?"
"Yup."
"Well, the dielectric constant of space is calculable. Measure up your
air condenser and see if it comes out even. Get the boys to measure
the radiation resistance of this space. It should be three hundred and
seventy-seven ohms. That is--if we are still in our original space.
Also you might get the standing wave ratio on some of the microwave
transmission lines. They depend upon the characteristic impedances of
space, the permeability and dielectric constant."
"O.K.," smiled Hendricks.
"Why the smile, Jim?"
"I was merely recalling a story like this. The hero proved it by
determining that Planck's Constant was not the same as back at home. I
was wondering how we'd measure it."
"How did they do it?"
"They didn't say."
"Good thing. Well, I like my method better. By measuring the capacity
of an air dielectric condenser, the dielectric constant of space
will be evident--but only if it is measured on the resistance type
of bridge. Comparing it to a standard condenser would result in both
of them shifting at the same time. Whereas the resistance of a metal
wouldn't change. That does not depend upon the vector analysis factors
of space, whereas capacitive reactance does."
"We might measure the speed of light, too."
"Not until we get this barge to a planet so we can get a decent base
line."
"We're not ill-equipped as all that," objected Hendricks. "This barge,
as you call it, is fully equipped with drivers."
"Why didn't the snatchers work when we took out after the devil?" asked
Lane.
"Nothing blew, in the first place," said Thompson. "And in the second
place, if we've warped ourselves out of our original space, the
snatchers might have had a tough time focusing on something heading out
of space through a warp in the continuum."
"Spectral lines do not mean anything in particular," said Downing, who
had been peering through a solar spectrometer at some of the nearer
stars. "More proof."
* * * * *
"Well, sure. Among items like having a different set of elements and
physical laws, the impedance of space is all tied up in the speed of
light, wave length, is a function of that, and so forth. Show me one
item lying in the field pertaining to the angular vector-pattern of
this space that agrees with that back home and the rest will probably
match too, and we'll be back home but displaced by God-knows-what."
"Ralph Welles claims that the radiation resistance of space is about
two hundred and seventeen ohms," reported Hendricks. "And Al Forbes
reports that the dielectric constant of space here is about twenty
micromicrofarads per meter less than back home. And the boys in
the microwave group claim that the quarterwave stubs in their pet
transmission line demand a new fundamental frequency of operation.
O.K., fellows. We started to bust up a sun and busted ourselves right
out of space and into another. Well, let's find a nice solid planet
somewhere and get there so we have solar power. Then we can start
thinking of ways to get back."
"So we couldn't pull the insides out of a sun, even using the sun's own
stellar atom factory for power," smiled Thompson, "but we did manage to
pull ourselves right out of space. Sort of a case of the sun pulling
first, I guess."
"Yeah," agreed Lane plaintively. "But how many different spaces are
there in the cosmos?"
"Probably an infinite number infinitesimally separated," answered
Downing.
"In which case," returned Lane, "how many spaces did we skip between
back home and right here?"
"I doubt that the separation between different space continuums is
infinitesimally small," objected Hendricks. "More like a matter of a
sort of quanta-separation. If the separation were not reasonably large,
the energy necessary to break through would not be so great. I predict
that we are in the space next door to our own."
"And if we take hold of another sun and pull--do we go one more space
away or back again?"
"I dunno. There isn't a space-theorist among us. I'll tell you one
thing, though. By the time we pull ourselves back and forth a few
times, we'll know which valve to hold down in order to drive up instead
of down."
Billy nodded. "If, as, and when we get back, let's see if we can devise
a method of tilting a hunk of stellar center into this space from
there. Better, probably, than just jerking it loose."
"Far better," observed Hendricks dryly. "If we can tilt ourselves into
a new space whilst pulling on a stellar core, obviously it is easier to
warp something into a new space than it is to rip the innards out of a
star."
"Is this the point to suggest that we have a brand new galaxy to work
on?" suggested Downing.
"Nope. We'll tell the Loard-vogh about it, though, and they may decide
to do something about it."
* * * * *
Perhaps never before has a stranger object traversed interstellar
space. Not by a stretch of the imagination could any race have
designed a spacecraft resembling the squat housing adorned above with
the battery of projectors. In the first place, it was all wrong for
spacecraft design, being built to sit flat on a planet where the normal
gravitic urge was down--or rather normal to the flat bottom. Spacecraft
are tall, ovoid shells that travel vertically, parallel to their long
axis, and the decking extends from side to side, at right angles to the
ship's course. And the projectors should not be all on one side. That
would leave the strange craft at the mercy of an attacking enemy from
below. Spacecraft armaments consist of one turret in the top, or nose,
one similar turret below, and several at discrete intervals about the
center of the ship for side protection.
Of infinitely more trouble than the problem of traversing space in
superdrive with an engineering project instead of a spacecraft was the
decision of which way to go.
Being lost in the depths of interstellar space without a star map and
with no idea of their position, and no one to call for a "fix," there
was no way of determining which of the stars were the closer. They all
stood there, twinkling against their background of stellar curtain, and
one looked as close as the next. Brightness was no criterion. Deneb,
four hundred light-years from Terra is brighter than Alpha Centaurus,
four light-years away.
Yet, with superdrive, they could cross quite a bit of space in a short
time. Hitting it off in any direction might bring them to within
deciding distance of a star in a short time or it might be that the
course went between stars for many hundred light-years.
It was Hendricks who solved the problem. "Get a hemisphere picture--and
we'll superdrive for one hour and take another. Superimposing them one
a-top the other should give us a reasonable parallax on the nearer
stars. One that we could see with the naked eye."
With the fates obviously laughing up their sleeves, the second plate
was never exposed. At fifty-one minutes of superdrive, the stellar
detector indicated stellar radiation within one quarter light-year.
Planet-locating plates were exposed as the project swept through the
star's neighborhood. There was quite an argument as to which of the
seven planets to choose, and for no other reason than sentimental
reasons--and the fact that the physical constants were right for
them--the group finally fixed their desire on the third planet.
The engineering project started to head for Planet III.
"Better name it, Billy," smiled Hendricks. "You found it."
"I found it? O.K.," grinned Thompson, "we'll call it Eureka."
"Eureka III?"
"Too cumbersome. Since we'll possibly not chart the system let's just
call the planet Eureka and forget about the stellar classification."
"Well, Eureka it is."
Jack Rhodes opened the door. "Better call it Money," he suggested.
"Why?"
"Because you fellows are going to find out that it is the hardest thing
you've ever tried to hold."
"Huh?" asked Hendricks.
"We're right close and there isn't the faintest shred of gravitic
field."
"Oh, no. Newton's Law--"
"Is valid right up to the last decimal place. 'Every object in the
universe attracts--' and we just ain't a part of this universe."
"Doesn't seem right."
"May be of exceptionally low density."
"Must be zero then," grinned