Explorers into infinity

"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.

II

Martt said, "Can't we make the tests, Father? There is a frightful lot to do and it's nearly mid-morning already."

From the table Dr. Gryce took a small rod of the milk-white metal—a rod half a meter long and the diameter of my smallest finger. He knelt on the floor beside the taboret, peering into the tiny doorway of the mechanism he was about to send winging into the distant ages of our Past. Again we were breathless.

"More light, Frannie," he said. "I can not see inside here." Frannie illumined the tubes along the ceiling; the room was flooded with their soft, blue-white light.

"That's better." Rod in hand he turned momentarily to me. "I'm going to throw the Time-switch by pressing it with this rod," he explained. "Within the vehicle—the confined space there—the current is equally felt." He smiled gravely. "Without the rod I should lose a finger to the Past——"

Carefully he inserted the rod into the doorway. A moment of fumbling, then I heard a click. The little milk-white model seemed to tremble. It glowed; from it there came a soft, infinitely small humming sound. It glowed, melted into translucency—transparency. For an instant I had a vague sense that a spectral wraith of it was still before me. Then with a blink of my eyelids I realized that it was gone. The taboret was empty. Beside it, Dr. Gryce knelt with the rod melted off midway of its length in his hand.

I breathed again. Brett said softly, "It is gone, Frank. Gone into the Past, relative to our consciousness of Time. Gone from our senses—yet it is here—occupying the same Space it did before—but with a different Time."

He passed his hand through the apparent vacancy above the taboret. To me then came a realization of how crowded all Space must be! Of what a tiny fraction of things existent—of events occurring—are we conscious! That Space over the taboret—empty to me. . . . yet it held for a mind omniscient an infinity of things strewn through the ages of the Past and Future. What multiplicity of events—unseen by me—Time was holding separate in that crowded Space above the taboret!

Dr. Gryce was saying, "Let us test one now by sending it into smallness—come here, Frank."

He had risen to stand by the table, with another of the models before him. "This bit of stone," he said. "Let us send it into that."

He laid a flat piece of black-gray, smoothly polished stone on the table near the model. And with another rod he reached into the doorway. Again I heard a click. He withdrew the rod. "You see, Frank."

I saw that the rod was slightly compressed along the length he had inserted. The model was already dwindling. Soundlessly, untremblingly—it was contracting, becoming smaller, with shape and aspect otherwise unchanged. Soon it was the size of my fist. Dr. Gryce picked it up, rested it upon his opened hand. But in a moment it was no more than a tiny cube rocking in the movement of his palm. He gripped it gingerly with thumb and forefinger and set it on the polished black slab of stone. Its milk-white color there showed it clearly. But it was very small—smaller than the thumb-nail of my little finger. The cone-shaped tower was a needle-point.

A breathless moment passed. It was now no more than a white speck upon the black stone surface.

Brett said, "Try the microscope, Frank. You watch it."

I put the low-powered instrument over it; Brett adjusted the light. The stone was smoothly polished. But now, under the glass, upon a shaggy mass of uneven rock surface I saw the vehicle visually as large as it had been originally. But it was dwindling progressively faster. Soon it lay tilted sidewise upon a slope of the rock; smaller—a tiny speck clinging there.

"Can you still see it?" Brett murmured.

"Yes—no—now it is gone." The rock seemed empty. Somewhere down in there the little mechanism lay dwindling. Forever it would grow smaller. Dwindling into an infinity of smallness; but always to be with things of its size—and things yet smaller. . . .

As I turned from the glass, I became aware that Martt and Frannie were not in the room. Dr. Gryce and Brett, absorbed in the test, quite evidently had not noticed them leave. There had been two other models on the table—there was now but one.

Then from the garden outside the house a cry reached us. A shout—a cry of fear—terror. Martt's voice.

"Father! Brett! Help us! Help! Quick!"

We rushed from the room.

Crowning wonder, yet horrible! A surge of fear swept me. In the garden quite near the house stood the other model. Small no longer. It had grown—was growing—until already it was as large as the house itself. Around it the flowers, shrubs, even a tree had been pushed and trampled by its expanding bulk. It stood gleaming white in the sunlight, motionless save for that steady, increasingly rapid growth. Its windows and doors loomed large dark rectangles; its balcony was broad as a corridor; its cone tower was already reared higher than the nearest trees.

"Father! Help!"

At the doorway of the vehicle, standing just outside it, were the terror-stricken Martt and Frannie. They were holding the end of a long metallic pole which projected into the doorway. Struggling with its weight, striving to throw the switch inside.

We reached them. The expanding bulk of the gleaming side of the vehicle had pushed them back into a thicket of shrubbery. Near them a tree, uprooted as though it were a straw sticking upright in sand, was pushed aside and fell with a crash.

Martt and Frannie were livid with terror; breathless, almost exhausted with their futile efforts.

Martt panted, "We can't—lift the pole! It's—too heavy—too large inside."

Within the huge doorway, by the sunlight streaming through the windows, I could see the interior half of the pole, bloated by growth, huge, heavy.

Brett shoved Frannie away. "Frank! Here—take hold with us."

Dr. Gryce was with us. Together we four men got the interior end of the pole upon the table inside. A tremendous switch lever was there. But the pole slipped, rolled down. I expected it to break at the doorway point where it was so small outside, but it did not. The expanding doorway had pushed us farther back. Another tree on the other side fell. Above us the vehicle's tower loomed like a cathedral spire. Tremendous now, the vehicle had grown until it was almost touching the house. A fence had been trampled, had vanished beneath its giant bulk.

And the growth was increasingly rapid. If we could not check it . . . If it got wholly beyond control—this monster, growing . . . forever growing, to a size infinitely large—larger than our earth itself. . . .

I must have been standing stupidly confused. I heard Dr. Gryce imploring, "Take hold of it, Frank! We must lift it. We must—our last chance——"

But Brett pushed us away. "I'm going inside. I can move the switch—let go of me, Father! That switch—it isn't too big yet—but it will be in a minute. Let go of me!"

"No! No, Brett! The shock as you went in—you couldn't take it so suddenly. It might hurt you—kill you. And the switch is too big for your strength."

It was out of control—this monster, growing, inexorably growing—it was pushing at the house—a great white giant pushing gently but with an irresistible power at the little toy house beside it. I could see the house shifting on its foundations; a corner of it tilted downward.

"Brett! Father! Try it now. One last try." Martt and Frannie had the pole again in position. With a last despairing effort we raised it; slid it up over the giant table-edge; caught the wide flaring side of the giant switch. Pushing—despairingly; five of us, pigmies struggling there at that giant threshold. The switch moved. Our pole held its place; the switch moved farther, clicked with a tremendous snap that reverberated about us. The growth of the monster was checked. It stood there serene, triumphant, with the little house, tilted, but still standing bravely beside it.

White, shaken, we ceased our efforts. Frannie gasped, "We—we only wanted to make it a normal size—so you could load it up with the furniture and things. But it—it got away from us."

Dr. Gryce said, "It is a lesson—perhaps a lesson which we needed forced upon us." He gestured to the great quiescent white building which had spread itself over most of the devastated garden. "A lesson," he repeated. "We must guard this power carefully. In unskilled or unscrupulous hands it is a power for evil almost unthinkable. This monster here—if it had gotten beyond us—if we had lost its control—this could destroy the Universe!"