Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 4 (1927-04).djvu/17

 "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 . 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 Timedimension 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?"