"Because," explained the elder, "we have listened to it being spoken
for many, many years. Over our visors we have both heard and watched
you on your neighboring world."
"Neighboring world?"
"How came you here?" asked the old man. "What means of propulsion
brought you hither?"
That, at least, Dirk knew. He answered eagerly.
"I came here through the medium of the greatest discovery ever made by
man. The _teleport_, a machine invented by Robert Townsend. A perfect
solution to the long puzzling problem of material transport through
Space. It disassembles the atoms of any body placed in its transmitting
chamber, and reconstructs that body at a destination selected by a
setting of its dials.
"Through circumstances not of my own choosing, I was a subject of that
machine. I was forced into the transmitter by ... well, it does not
matter whom ... and my body broadcast to this spot. Though I do not
yet, sir, understand just where I am, or exactly how I reached here--"
The old man shook his head regretfully.
"I am sorry, my boy, to tell you the machine did not work as was
planned. Its theory was sound; in one respect it performed as expected.
It _did_ disassemble your atomic components, did reconstruct your body
elsewhere. But it was to no far bourne your journey carried you.
"_Your body still stands in exactly the spot it stood before the
machine operated!_"
* * * * *
For a long, uncomprehending moment Dirk Morris gaped at his informant.
At last his bedazement found words.
"Oh, now, surely you can't expect me to believe--"
"No," interrupted the graybeard gently, "not without visual evidence.
Rima, my dear--?"
He turned to the girl, who nodded and from the folds of her garment
produced a shimmering crystal object; a mirror of some sort, or a lens.
This she handed to Dirk.
"If you will look through this--?" she suggested.
Morris lifted the crystal to his eyes wonderingly ... then almost
dropped it in his excitement!
Beneath his feet still lay the lush greensward of an alien world, but
through the curious crystal he gazed upon no panorama of soft, rolling
hills and pleasant valleys. Before him lay the image of a scene he had
but recently quitted: the execution dock of Graed Garroway's prison!
A few feet to his right stood the metal chamber into which he had been
thrust, the supposed "disintegration cell." Through the viewpane of
this the Overlord was peering, a grim smirk of satisfaction on his
lips. As Dirk watched, Garroway turned and gestured to the guardsman
whose hand had depressed the activating switch. Dirk heard no words,
but could easily read the movement of the Emperor's lips.
"_Enough! It is done!_"
With an instinct born of illogic, Dirk reached forth as if to grip
the throat of the murderous Garroway. In doing so, the crystal left
his eyes. Instantly the scene vanished. He looked once more upon
distance-purpled hills softly limned in the splendor of two suns.
The girl laughed softly.
"Confusing at first, isn't it? But you'll soon--"
"Please!" begged Dirk hoarsely. "I must see--" He placed the mirrorlike
object once more to his eyes, saw Graed Garroway lead the way from
the execution chamber. Awkwardly, uncertainly, Morris took a step
forward ... another. Though he knew his feet trod the soil of the
planet Nadron, to his eyes it seemed he glided forward across the floor
of the prison.
The door swung to behind Garroway and his followers, and involuntarily
Dirk flinched ... then grunted reproof at his own needless gesture.
So far as he was concerned, that heavy metal barrier did not exist.
For the briefest fraction of an instant his vision was blotted by jet
darkness, then he stood outside the door, looking down the corridor.
He hastened forward, stumbling, as feet that appeared to be traversing
smooth floors actually trod uneven soil, and paused at last, an
invisible presence at the tableau next enacted. He witnessed his
friends' release from the cell, read the movement of Hardesty's dry
lips as Neil whispered, "_It ... it is over?_" He saw Garroway's
boastful warning, Brian's hot denial, then watched--first with dazed
incomprehension, then with fierce understanding--the betrayal, panic
and execution of Fred Meacher.
* * * * *
When Meacher's corpse lay on the floor at ... or so it seemed ... his
very feet, and the comrades left the hallway, he would again have
followed them. But at that moment he landed with a solid bump against
something hard, and with a start he looked from the crystal to find a
tree before him. More than a hundred yards away waited those who had
befriended him. He retraced his steps slowly to their company.
"Now you understand and believe, my boy?" the kindly alien asked.
"I believe," said Dirk simply. "But, sir--"
"My name, man of Earth, is Slador. On this world, I am known as the
Ptan Slador, which is to say 'teacher.' This is my daughter, Rima."
"I am called Morris. Dirk Morris. I also--" Dirk spoke bitterly--"have
a number, as have all Earthmen of this unhappy century. Yes, Ptan
Slador, I believe, but even yet I do not understand. I stand in one
world, but looking through your crystal I see into another: my own. Why
is this?"
"Because, Dirk Morris, our two worlds lie adjacent."
"Adjacent? You mean in Space?"
"I mean in Space-Time. Look, my young friend ... your Earth science
knows of the atom?"
"But of course. It is the building-block of matter. The smallest
indivisible unit--"
"Exactly. Yet even this minute fleck of matter, the building-block
of worlds, so small that it cannot be observed under man's strongest
microscopes, is composed of ninety-nine per cent _empty space_!
"Or, let me say, rather ... what _appears_ to be such to the men of all
universes. Actually, there is no emptiness in the atom. It is composed
of solid matter, but the individual zerons of this single entity are
all vibrating at a different frequency in the Greater Universe which
includes _all_ of Space and Time.
"Consequently, you on Earth, existing at one rate of vibration, see
an entire universe vibrating at a period which matches your own. We
of Nadron live under another vibration. Our solidity, our world, our
universe ... these are all part of the 'emptiness' of _your_ world,
just as _your_ existence forms a part of the emptiness of _our_ atom.
Do you see?"
"Vaguely," said Dirk humbly. "Only vaguely. We, the young men of my
era, are not an educated people, Ptan Slador. There was a time in
Earth's history when all men were free to study where and as they
wished, read what they willed. It is not so now. Only the highborn are
permitted to own books, or borrow them from the Overlord's crypts; only
those designated by the Emperor are taught to read and write. The rest
of us, hungry for a crust of knowledge, must gather in hidden places to
learn our letters from instructors who risk their lives to teach us."
"You mean," cried the girl, "one man has dared grasp so much power? So
much evil power?"
Slador nodded gravely.
"Yes, my dear. I have long believed some such situation existed on
our neighbor world. From scenes I have witnessed through the visor,
snatches of whispered conversation, I guessed such might be the case.
It is a sorry plight for a once proud world. Drowned in a sea of
ignorance, sunken in a slough of misery and despair, mankind is beaten
helpless--"
Dirk laughed gratingly.
"Pardon me, sir. Not beaten. Not helpless. We are ignorant, yes ... but
not yet have all of us abandoned hope of striking off our shackles.
"We have a secret organization, fostered by the late Dr. Townsend,
led until recently by myself, now headed by the bravest of my former
comrades: Neil Hardesty. The members of this clan are pledged to one
purpose ... the overthrow of Graed Garroway, tyrant of the Solar System.
"Our greatest hope for success lay in Dr. Townsend's invention, the
_teleport_. It is quite impossible to muster an armed band on any of
the planets under Garroway's thumb. His spies are everywhere. Even--"
Dirk finished bitterly--"among our own supposed comrades.
"Therefore we had planned to transport our bodies to some extra-Solar
world, there gird ourselves for a last fight against Garroway's
minions. That was our dream. But now--"
He paused, shaking his head sorrowfully. That dream was now ended. Dr.
Townsend's secret weapon was not what had been hoped. Instead--
* * * * *
Then, even as he despaired, understanding drove home with blinding
force. The weapon was _not_ a failure! It was a success ... but in
another way than had been planned. He cried aloud: "But, yes! I've been
blind! This way is just as good ... perhaps better!"
"What way, Dirk Morris?" asked the girl.
"There is no need to seek a far planet of a far sun! We planned that
solely because we did not know anything about the existence of your
world, your universe.
"Nadron shall be our rallying spot! It is the ideal spot wherein to
gather our forces. Close to Earth ... seconds, not light-years, from
the foe we would crush--"
"A moment, Earthman!" interrupted Slador. "You mean to use our world as
the breeding-place for conflict on yours? Is that your thought?"
"But of course. What better place?"
The Ptan shook his head gravely.
"I am sorry, my son. But I fear that is impossible. The Council would
never permit it."
"Council?"
"Our government. Here we have a World Council, made up of the oldest
and wisest amongst us. Many, many centuries ago the question was raised
as to whether we of Nadron should establish and maintain intercourse
between our neighboring planets.
"After a lengthy period of observation and study, it was decided we
should not. It was the Council's judgment--" Here Slador flushed with
thin apology--"that Earth is in too primitive a stage of development
for such a union.
"Wherever and whenever we watched affairs unfolding, we saw war,
strife, bickering and discontent. We saw poverty and hunger ... perils
unknown in our own quiet civilization. We heard the roar of gunfire and
the bombastic mouthings of warlords. We found, in short, no culture
worthy of inclusion in our own placid existence.
"At that time was the Law laid down ... that we of Nadron should not
embroil ourselves in Earth's affairs until such time as a civilized
Earth should be able to meet us on a plane of equal amity.
"Therefore--" sighed the Ptan--"despite my private sympathy with your
cause, I am compelled to warn you that you may not use Nadron as host
for your gathering forces. Though a peaceful world, we have means of
enforcing this edict. I am sorry, but you must develop other plans."
Dirk stared at the speaker strickenly, realizing the logic of all
Slador had said, but feeling, nevertheless, sick despair that Earth's
past madnesses should now so destroy the only chance of present
salvation. He turned to the girl, who returned his gaze with a helpless
little shrug of sympathy.
He wet his lips, said hoarsely, "But ... but if you do not help us,
Earth is doomed to tyranny for countless decades to come. You cannot
refuse us your aid--"
Slador said smoothly, surprisingly, "I have not said I would not aid
you. I have merely forbidden your forces the soil of Nadron. But there
are ... other ways of helping. Ways not under the ban of our Council's
sage decision."
Hope surged in Morris like a welling tide.
"There are?" he cried. "What ways, Ptan Slador?"
"Have you forgotten," asked Slador, "the strangeness of your own
existence here? Or is it that you do not yet see how this can be bent
to use? Listen, my son--"
He spoke, and Dirk Morris listened with ever growing interest.