Authors: E. E. 'Doc' Smith
‘But, Dick, we’ll drown!’ Margaret protested. ‘This stuff is altogether too thin for us to swim in – we’ll sink like rocks!’
‘Sure we will, but what of it?’ he returned. ‘How many times have you actually breathed since we left three-dimensional space?’
‘Why, thousands of times, I suppose – or, now that you mention it, I don’t really know whether I’m breathing at all or not – but we’ve been gone so long … Oh, I don’t believe that I really know
anything
!’
‘You aren’t breathing at all,’ he informed her then. ‘We have been expending energy, though, in spite of that fact, and the only way I can explain it is that there must be fourth-dimensional oxygen or we would have suffocated long ago. Being three-dimensional, of course we wouldn’t have to breathe it in for the cells to get the benefit of it – they grab it direct. Incidentally, that probably accounts for the fact that I’m hungry as a wolf, but that’ll have to wait until we get back into our own space again.’
True to Seaton’s prediction, they suffered no inconvenience as they strode along the metaled pavement of the river’s bottom, Seaton still carrying the bent and battered grating with which he had wrought such havoc in the corridor so far above.
Almost at the end of the tunnel, a shark-like creature darted upon them, dreadful jaws agape. With his left arm Seaton threw Margaret behind him, while with his right he swung the four-dimensional grating upon the monster of the deeps. Under the fierce power of the blow the creature became a pulpy mass, drifting inertly away upon the current, and Seaton stared after it ruefully.
‘That particular killing was entirely unnecessary, and I’m sorry I did it,’ he remarked.
‘Unnecessary? Why, it was going to bite me!’ she cried.
‘Yeah, it
thought
it was, but it would have been just like one of our own real sharks trying to bite the chilled-steel prow off a battleship,’ he replied. ‘Here comes another one. I’m going to let him gnaw on my arm, and see how he likes it.’
On the monster came with a savage rush, until
the dreadful outthrust snout almost touched the man’s bare, extended arm. Then the creature stopped, dead still in mid-rush, touched the arm tentatively, and darted away with a quick flirt of its powerful tail.
‘See, Peg, he knows we ain’t good to eat. None of these hyperanimals will bother us – it’s only these men with their meat hooks that we have to fight shy of. Here’s the jump-off. Better we hit it easylike – I wouldn’t wonder if that sandy bottom would be pretty tough going. I think maybe we’d better take to the beach as soon as we can.’
From the metaled pavement of the brilliantly lighted aqueduct they stepped out upon the natural sand bottom of the open river. Above them was only the somberly sullen intensity of velvety darkness; a darkness only slightly relieved by the bluely luminous vegetation upon the river’s either bank. In spite of their care they sank waist-deep into that sand, and it was only with great difficulty that they fought their way up to the much firmer footing of the nearer shore.
Out upon the margin at last, they found that they could make good time, and they set out downstream at a fast but effortless pace. Mile after mile they traveled, until, suddenly, as though some universal switch had been opened, the ghostly radiance of all the vegetation of the countryside disappeared in an instant, and utter and unimaginable darkness descended as a pall. It was not the ordinary darkness of an Earthly night, nor yet the darkness of even an Earthly dark room; it was indescribable, completely perfect darkness of the total absence of every ray of light.
‘Dick!’ shrieked Margaret. ‘Where are you?’
‘Right here, Peg – take it easy,’ he advised, and groping fingers touched and clung. ‘They’ll probably light up again. Maybe this is their way of having night. We can’t do much, anyway, until it gets light again. We couldn’t possibly find the
Skylark
in this darkness; and even if we could feel our way downriver we’d miss the island that marks our turning-off point. Here, I feel a nice soft rock. I’ll sit down with my back against it and you can lie down, with my lap for a pillow, and we’ll take us a nap. Wasn’t it Porthos, or some other one of Dumas’ characters that said, “He who sleeps, eats”?’
‘Dick, you’re a perfect peach to take things the way you do.’ Margaret’s voice was broken. ‘I know what you’re thinking of, too. Oh, I
do
hope that nothing has become of them!’ For she well knew that, true and loyal friend though Seaton was, yet his every thought was for beloved Dorothy, presumably still in
Skylark Two
– just as Martin Crane came first with her in everything.
‘Sure they’re all right, Peg.’ An instantly suppressed tremor shook his giant frame. ‘They’re figuring on keeping them in the
Lark
until they raise her, I imagine. If I had known as much then as I know now they’d never have got away with any of this stuff – but it can’t be helped now. I wish I could do something, because if we don’t get back to
Two
pretty quick it seems as though we may snap back into our own three dimensions
and land in empty space. Or would we, necessarily? The time coordinates would change, too, of course, and that change might very well make it obligatory for us to be back in our exact original locations in the
Lark
at the instant of transfer, no matter where we happen to be in this hyperspace–hypertime continuum. Too deep for me – I can’t figure it. Wish Mart was here, maybe he could see through it.’
‘You don’t wish half as much as I do!’ Margaret exclaimed feelingly.
‘Well, anyway, we’ll pretend that
Two
can’t run off and leave us here. That certainly is a possibility, and it’s a cheerful thought to dwell on while we can’t do anything else. Now close your eyes and go bye-bye.’
They fell silent. Now and again Margaret dozed, only to start awake at the coughing grunt of some near-by prowling hyper-denizen of that unknown jungle, but Seaton did not sleep. He did not even half believe in his own hypothesis of their automatic return to their spaceship; and his vivid imagination insisted upon dwelling lingeringly upon every hideous possibility of their return to three-dimensional space outside their vessel’s sheltering walls. And the same imagination continually conjured up visions of what might be happening to Dorothy – to the beloved bride who, since their marriage upon far distant Osnome, had never before been separated from him for so long a time. He had to struggle against an insane urge to do something, anything; even to dash madly about in the absolute darkness of hyperspace in a mad attempt – doomed to certain failure before it was begun – to reach
Skylark Two
before she should vanish from four-dimensional space.
Thus, while Seaton grew more and more tense momently, more and ever more desperately frustrated, the abysmally oppressive hypernight wore illimitably on. Creeping – plodding – d-r-a-g-g-i-n-g endlessly along; extending itself fantastically into the infinite reaches of all eternity.
As suddenly as the hyperland had become dark it at last became light. There was no gradual lightening, no dawning, no warning – in an instant, blindingly to eyes which had for so long been strained in vain to detect even the faintest ray of visible light in the platinum-black darkness of the hypervoid, the entire countryside burst into its lividly glowing luminescence. As the light appeared Seaton leaped to his feet with a yell.
‘Yowp! I was never so glad to see a light before in all
my life, even if it
is
blue! Didn’t sleep much either, did you, Peg?’
‘Sleep? I don’t believe that I’ll
ever
be able to sleep again! It seemed as though I was lying there for weeks!’
‘It did seem long, but time is meaningless to us here, you know.’
The two set out at a rapid pace, down the narrow beach beside the hyperstream. For a long time nothing was said, then Margaret broke out, half hysterically:
‘Dick, this is simply driving me mad! I think probably I
am
mad, already. We seem to be walking, yet we aren’t, really; we’re going altogether too fast, and yet we don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Besides, it’s taking forever and ever …’
‘Steady, Peg! Keep a stiff upper lip! Of course we really aren’t walking, in a three-dimensional sense, but we’re getting there, just the same. I’d say that we are traveling almost half as fast as that airship was, which is a distinctly cheerful thought. And don’t try to think of anything in detail, because equally of course we can’t understand it. Try not to think of anything at all, out here, because you can’t get to first base. You can
do
it, physically – let it go at that.
‘And as for time, forget it. Just remember that, as far as we are concerned, this whole episode is occupying only a thousandth of a second of our own real time, even if it seems to last a thousand years. Paste that idea in your hat and stick to it. Think of a thousandth of a second and snap your fingers at anything that happens. And, above all, get it down solid that you’re not nutty – it’s just that everything else around here is. It’s like that wild one Sir Eustace pulled on me that time, remember? “I say, Seaton old chap, the chaps hereabout seem to regard me as a foreigner. Now really, you know, they should realize that I am simply alone in a nation of foreigners.”’
Margaret laughed, recovering a measure of her customary poise at Seaton’s matter-of-fact explanations and reassurance, and the seemingly endless journey went on. Indeed, so long did it seem that the high-strung and apprehensive Seaton was every moment expecting the instantaneous hypernight again to extinguish all illumination long before they came within sight of the little island, with its unmistakably identifying obelisk of reddish stone.
‘Woof, but that’s a relief!’ he exploded at sight of the marker. ‘We’ll be there in a few minutes more – here’s hoping it holds off for those few minutes!’
‘It will,’ Margaret said confidently. ‘It’ll have to, now that we’re so close. How are you possibly going to get a line on those three peaks? We cannot possibly see over or through that jungle.’
‘Easy – just like shooting fish down a well. That’s one reason I was so glad to see that tall obelisk thing over there – it’s big enough to hold my weight and high enough so that I can see the peaks from its top. I’m going to climb up it and wigwag you onto the line we want. Then
we’ll set a pole on that line and crash through the jungle, setting up back-sights as we go along. We’ll be able to see the peaks in a mile or so, and once we see them it’ll be easy to find
Two
.’
‘But climbing Cleopatra’s Needle comes first, and it’s straight up and down,’ Margaret objected practically. ‘How are you going to do that?’
‘With a couple of hypergrab-hooks – watch me!’
He wrenched off three of the bars of his cell grating and twisted them together, to form a heavy rod. One end of this rod he bent back upon itself, sharpening the end by squeezing it in his two hands. It required all of his prodigious strength, but in his grasp the metal slowly flowed together in a perfect weld and he waved in the air a sharply pointed hook some seven feet in length. In the same way he made another, and, with a word to the girl, he shot away through the almost intangible water toward the island.
He soon reached the base of the obelisk, and into its rounded surface he drove one of his hyperhooks. But he struck too hard. Though the hook was constructed of the most stubborn metal known to the denizens of that strange world, the obelisk was of hyperstone and the improvised tool rebounded, bent out of all semblance and useless.
It was quickly reshaped, however, and Seaton went more gently about his task. He soon learned exactly how much pressure his hooks would stand, and also the best method of imbedding the sharp metal points in the rock of the monument. Then, both hooks holding, he drove the toe of one heavy boot into the stone and began climbing.
Soon, however, his right-hand hook refused to bite; the stone had so dulled the point of the implement that it was useless. After a moment’s thought Seaton settled both feet firmly, and, holding the shaft of the left-hand hook under his left elbow, bent the free end around behind his back. Then, both hands free, he essayed the muscle-tearing task of squeezing that point again into serviceability.
‘Watch out, Dick – you’ll fall!’ Margaret called.
‘I’ll try not to,’ he called back cheerfully. ‘Took too much work and time to get up this far to waste it. Wouldn’t hurt me if I did fall – but you might have to come over and pull me out of the ground.’
He did not fall. The hook was repointed without accident and he continued up the obelisk – a human fly walking up a vertical column. Four times he had to stop to sharpen his climbers, but at last he stood atop the lofty shaft. From that eminence he could see not only the three peaks, but even the scene of confused activity which he knew marked the mouth of the gigantic well at whose bottom the
Skylark
lay. Margaret had broken off a small tree, and from the obelisk’s top Seaton directed its placing as a transitman directs the setting of his head flag.
‘Left – way left!’ His arm waved its hook in great circles. ‘Easy now!’ Left arm poised aloft. ‘All right for line!’ Both arms swept up and down, once. A careful recheck … ‘Back a hair.’ Right arm out, insinuatingly. ‘All right for tack – down she goes!’ Both arms up and down, twice, and
the feminine flagman drove the marker deep into the sand.
‘You might come over here, Peg!’ Seaton shouted, as he began his hasty descent. ‘I’m going to climb down until my hooks get too dull to hold, and then fall the rest of the way – no time to waste sharpening them – and you may have to rally round with a helping hand.’
Scarcely a third of the way down, one hook refused to function. A few great plunging steps downward and the other also failed – would no longer even scratch the stubborn stone. Already falling, Seaton gathered himself together, twisted bars held horizontally beneath him, and floated gently downward. He came to the ground no harder than he would have landed after jumping from a five-foot Earthly fence; but even his three-ply bars of hypermetal did not keep him from plunging several feet into that strangely unsubstantial hyperground.