"Don't be a fool! Climb that ladder and you'll butt your skull in!"
"I came through the hatch. I'll leave through the hatch."
"But we've shifted thirty degrees. You told us to. Now the top of the
ladder is thirty degrees away from the door of the laundry chute, which
is quite impossible to reach, my friend, because there is perhaps dirt
and a foundation and everything else in the way. We'd have to tear
out our own structure and gouge into yours. This we cannot do. Too
expensive."
* * * * *
Ernie had heard enough. He climbed the ladder to the top, butted his
head and climbed down. "Okay. You win. What's the score?"
"You and Marsha," the man said.
"Melinee," Ernie corrected.
"Melinee in your dimension, Marsha in ours. You and she exist in our
dimension as well. Same types, same characteristics inwardly. But not
the same outwardly. Different hair, different name--your own features
were to be slightly different here."
Ernie sat down on the sofa beside the two old men. He buried his head.
"This is the other dimension? Then where is the other me?"
"Oh, no," his host said. "This is not 'the other' dimension. This is
the _experimental_ dimension. _You_ are from the second. What we are
both in is a third realm sponsored by the government--the federal
government of The Unison States. Congrice sponsored this scientific
investigation, provided we could accomplish it before the session ends."
The first desire to laugh at the stupidity of the nightmare grappled
with Ernie. But when he looked at that ladder and remembered the bump
on his head, he knew this was not the time or place for a nightmare.
The man went on, "So we talked Senatore Jumphries into wielding his
might in committee, the committee on extra-dimensional perception
talked to the President Eisenhoovelt, he addressed the Congrice, and by
the single vote of Demorep Martini, this thing was financed for short
duration."
Ernie opened his eyes and looked beyond the bar and the experimental
lab. It was like the inside of a giant ship in space or a vessel
plowing the Pacific. It spread into distant chasms of darkness.
"Our object, of course, is to start out the new dimension with an Adam
and Eve," the host said.