The transmitter operated in accordance with as rigid a set of laws as
did the planets swinging in their orbits; strange laws, but laws of
nature none the less. No receiver was required. The destination of the
mass under transmission was determined by the operator, holding in his
mind the five-dimensional conceptualization of the target, guiding the
action of the machine.
And I had no target.
I could no more direct the bomb to a desert without a five-fold grasp
of its multi-ordinal spatial, temporal, and entropic co-ordinates than
I could fire a rifle at a target in the dark.
I was like a man with a grenade in his hand, pin pulled--and locked in
a cell.
I swept the exocosm again, desperately. And caught a thin, live line. I
traced it; it cut through the mountain, dived deep underground, crossed
the boundless plain....
Never branching, it bored on, turning upward now--and ending.