"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 myrdoscope. 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 garment 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 composing 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 we 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 Time-dimension 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.