Explorers into infinity

FREEDOM IN TIME AND SPACE

I was busy with the Martian mail which had just arrived when the message from Brett Gryce reached me. I did not apprehend that there was anything of secrecy about it, since he was using the open air; yet there was in his voice a note of tenseness and his summons was urgent.

"I can't come, Brett, until I get through the mail." I was rushed, and in a mood of ill-temper at the universe in general.

"When will that be?" he demanded.

"I don't know. It's accursedly large. Most of it seems to call for radio distribution—these Martians are always in a hurry."

"Come when you can," he said quietly.

"Tonight?"

"Yes—tonight. No matter how late—I must see you, Frank."

"I'll come," I said, and cut him off.

It was long past trinight, with dawn beginning to brighten the sky beyond the masonry of lower Great-New York, when I had disposed of those miserable Martian dispatches. The Gryces lived in the Southern Pennsylvania area. My aerocar was at hand. I had rather planned to use it; but I was tired and in no mood for effort. I decided to take the pneumatic, since there was a branch—little traveled, it is true—which would drop me within some twenty kilometers of the Gryce home.

They gave me an individual cylinder, with a bed if I cared to sleep. I did not. I lay there wondering what Brett could want of me; pleased also that I would see Francine—dear little Frannie. . . .

Occasionally I would call the Director ahead. They are sometimes careless in the switching of special individual cylinders; and I had no wish to pass the branch and find myself bringing up at some gulf terminal with half the morning getting back. Once I called Brett. He would meet me with his aero at the end of the branch when I arrived. He, too, reminded the Director. A surly sort of fellow; the Gryces had already reported him to the General Traffic Staff of Great-London.

I was not misdirected, however; but it was broad daylight when I emerged to find Brett impatiently awaiting me. And in a few minutes more we were landing at the aero-stage beside the Gryce home.

It was a simple enough place—for all Dr. Gryce's reputed wealth. An estate of a few kilometers, set in a heavy grove of trees with a high metallic wall about it. The granite house itself was small, unpretentious. There were few outbuildings; one a large rectangular affair which vaguely I understood was a workshop. I had never been in it. I knew old Dr. Gryce was interested in science; in his day he had materially advanced civilization with several fundamental devices. But what—if anything—he might be doing now, I had no idea.

Brett would tell me nothing beyond the fact that his father had suggested they send for me. But he seemed excited, tense. Dr. Gryce greeted me with his familiar kindliness. Though I did not see as much of this family as I would like (my business with the Interplanetary Mails was wholly underpaid and miserably confining), yet I counted the Gryces among my closest friends.

Dr. Gryce said, "We are very glad to see you, Frank. Come outside. Frannie is preparing breakfast."

His manner was grave and quiet as always. But there was about him also an air of tenseness; and an aspect of apprehension. And it struck me, a sort of weary, resigned depression which suddenly made his years sit more heavily upon him. He was a man of some eighty odd; and though for him no more than twenty or thirty years of life could be anticipated, I had never considered him really old. He was small, slight of frame, but erect, sturdy and vigorous. A smooth-shaven face with no more lines upon it than a keen intellect and a character once wholly forceful would engrave. And a mass of snow-white shaggy hair to make his head appear preternaturally large.

He seemed old now, however, with that sense of depression hanging upon him. And an indefinable aspect of fear.

I must allot a word to picture the three children of Dr. Gryce, motherless since childhood. Brett was now twenty-eight—three years older than myself, and physically my opposite. I am short, slender and rather dark. And—so they tell me—not too even of temper. Brett was a blond young giant. Crisp, wavy blond hair, blue eyes and the strong-featured, ruddy face of a handsome athlete. But not too handsome, for there was upon him no consciousness of his essentially masculine beauty. He was wonderfully good-natured. His was a ready, hearty laugh. He looked at life often from the humorous viewpoint. But he had also a touch of his father's grave dignity; and a keen intellect and a soberness of thought and reason far beyond his years.

The two other children—Martynn and Francine—were twins, now just seventeen. Alike, physically and temperamentally, as children of a birth traditionally should be. Slim and rather small—Martynn about my height; Francine somewhat shorter. Both blue-eyed, with blond hair. Francine's hair was long-waving tresses which she wore generally in plaits over her shoulders; Martynn's was short and curly. They were rather alike of feature; a delicacy of mold which gave to Martynn a girlishness. But not an effeminacy, for he was a young daredevil; and his sister hardly a lesser one. In childhood and adolescence an impish spirit of deviltry had always seemed to possess these twins; a spirit of mischief which had made them a great trial to their father. It had turned, now that they were nearing maturity, into an apparent desire for reckless adventure—the product of abounding health, and bubbling, irrepressible good nature. They adored each other; were constantly together, with youthful escapades threatening limb and life and complete disaster, out of which they would emerge or be extricated with dauntless spirits unperturbed.

The greater maturity of womanhood at seventeen had brought to Frannie moments of gentleness, sweetness and a simple dignity. But they were brief moments, and no more than a word or look from her twin was needed to dispel them. Martt himself was without a vestige of dignity. But they were no fools, these twins. They could, upon strict necessity, give sober, intelligent thought to any problem at hand (Martynn had won honors at the Great-London University); but of sober, matured action they were incapable. Fearless—unreasonably fearless. But irresistible, likable, and apparently quite capable of being restrained. A word from Dr. Gryce, or from Brett—and to a lesser extent from me who had known them from childhood—brought instant though often very temporary obedience. They considered themselves quite grown up now. In truth, at seventeen, Frannie was to my eyes a really beautiful young woman.

II

We sat in a little arbor beside the house, with its breakfast table already laid. Dr. Gryce, Brett, and myself. Martt was with Frannie preparing the meal. It was evidence of the simplicity which marked the Gryce household. In these days of mechanical devices for almost everything—and the usual multiplicity of servants—there was not a meal prepared for Dr. Gryce save by his daughter.

I was very curious to learn why they had sent for me; but I had no need to question, for at once Dr. Gryce plunged into it.

"I hope, Frank, that you can stay—well, at least a few days with us. Can you?"

I stared. The Day Officer of the Manhattan Interplanetary Postal Division was undoubtedly already in a rage at my absence. I said so. "A few days? Dr. Gryce, I dread every conjunction that brings these accursed mails—my divisional officers think it's a crime even to eat or sleep when a planet is near us."

He smiled. "I imagine I can fix it."

"Then I'll stay, of course. If you could fix the planetary orbits so that they were parabolas, Dr. Gryce, it would suit me exactly."

He and Brett both were smiling, but Dr. Gryce's smile was momentary, for at once that indefinable air of trouble returned to him.

"Frank," he said, "I hardly know how to begin telling you what we have done—are about to do. It seems curious also—I know it will strike you so, you have been such a friend to me and my children—that during all these years we have given you no hint of our purpose."

"We have told no one," Brett put in: "no one in the world."

I said nothing, but my curiosity increased. It was doubtless of grave import, this thing they had to tell me; the solemnity, earnestness which stamped them both was unmistakable.

For a moment Dr. Gryce was silent; then he said abruptly, "You know, Frank, all my life I have been engaged with science. In a measure, I have been successful; there are a few devices which will bear my name when I am gone."

I nodded. "I know that very well, Dr. Gryce."

"But all those things," he added earnestly, "all that I stand for to the world, has really been of little importance to me. My main labor, goal, dream, if you will, I have never told anyone—not a living person except my children. For ten years past Brett has been helping me. And though you would hardly believe it, for the last year or two Martt and Frannie have been of material aid in the accomplishment of my purpose."

"What branch of science?" I asked. "And you've accomplished it? You're ready to give it to the world?"

"Accomplished it—yes. But we are not ready to give it to the world—perhaps we never shall. There would be evil in it—evil diabolical—in untrained or unscrupulous hands. But we are ready to test it—a practical test. Tonight, Frank, my boy Brett is going upon an adventure——"

The fear which had been lurking in his eyes leaped to stamp his other features. He was afraid for Brett—afraid of this thing they were going to do. He had stopped abruptly; and more quietly he added:

"I want you to understand me, Frank, and so for a moment we must be wholly theoretical. This thing we are about to do involves the construction of our whole material universe. You know, of course, that no limit has been found to the divisibility of matter?"

His sudden question confused me. "You mean," I stammered, "that things can be infinitely small?"

"That there is no limit to smallness," Brett put in. "An atom—an electron—they are mere words. Within them conceivably might be a space with stars, planets, suns—worlds of their own so tiny that compared to the Space in which they roam that Space would seem—and would be—illimitable. Picture that, Frank. And picture upon one of those worlds inhabitants of proportionate smallness. What would they see, feel or think of the universe? Would they not conceive it about as we do? Picture them with powerful microscopes, looking downward into the matter composing their world. They would be aware of molecules, atoms—they would gaze down into Space unending. Another realm within their own. And within that one—others and yet others to infinity. The conception confuses you, Frank? It need not. Each of those realms is tiny—or large—according to the viewpoint. There can be no such thing as absolute size."

"That is what I mean," Dr. Gryce interrupted eagerly. "Absolute size—how can you conceive it? You can not. A thing is large or small only in relation to something else smaller or larger."

He waved his hand to the rolling landscape with the morning light and shadow upon it, visible through the arbor.

"There is our everyday world, Frank. How big is it? You can not say. Millimeters, meters, kilometers, helans, light-years—those are only words with which we designate a comparison. Compared to what our microscopes show us, this world of ours is very large, but compared to the spaces between the stars—the stars themselves—it is very small. Try then to imagine its absolute size. You can not, because there is no such thing. A universe within what we call an atom—another realm within an atom of matter upon one of the worlds of that universe—is not an extraordinary state of smallness until we compare it with ourselves.

"And this world of ours. It is normal to us; of no absolute size whatever—neither large nor small—until we compare it to something else. But suppose we visualize larger realms? Suppose we say these planets, stars—all the starry universe within our ken and this visual space which contains them—suppose we imagine all that to be contained within the atom of a particle of matter of some comparatively still larger realm? At once our world and ourselves shrink into smallness. Where a moment ago we had seemed large, now we seem small. Yet that other gigantic world within which we are contained—if we could live in it our telescopes would show us still larger Space unending. We would feel tiny—and of actuality we would be tiny—contemplating Space and size so much larger."

"And there you have infinity of Space," Brett added, as his father paused. "Unending Space both smaller and larger than ourselves. We—everything of which we can be physically aware—represent no more than a single step in the ladder which has no bottom nor no top. You can not conceive an end in either direction. There is no such thing. Nor—as Father says—can you declare anything to be small or large considered by itself alone. This then is Space as we conceive it to be. Illimitable, unending—infinite Space."

The conception momentarily seemed wholly beyond my grasp. What I would have answered when for a moment Dr. Gryce and Brett paused I do not know, for from the house the approaching voices of Martt and Frannie reached us.

"You'll fall, I tell you! Frannie, give me that!"

"I won't."

"You'll trip over the wires and you'll fall and smash it!"

"I won't."

The sound of a crash. And Martt's voice, "There, I told you!"

They were upon us, wheeling the tray laden with breakfast; Martt, flushed, laughing. "Oh, hello, Frank—they didn't switch you wrong, did they? Frannie broke the heater coils—if the breakfast gets cold, don't blame me."

And Frannie, also flushed and laughing and a trifle rueful over the mishap. Dressed in a blue blouse and widely flaring, knee-length trousers, with her golden hair tossing on her shoulders. The picture of a little housewife, of early morning informality. I thought I had never seen her so beautiful.

III

"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!"