Chapter III

"Well, from the expression on your face, I should say that my guess as to friend Nestor's ideas was right, Ran?" grinned Putney as Warren came into the laboratory. Half a dozen men of Putney's staff were grouped around their chief, and smiled at the angry Warren.

"Very," replied Warren with a grimace. "He offered me fifteen whole thousands a year—and he knows damn well that, if my ideas are right, the thing is worth—oh there isn't any possible limit to set on it. It's beyond value. And the old skunk would keep it tightly wrapped up in his own private pink ribbon—to be sold only at his own prices. He's probably put it just low enough to wreck the existing power companies, and high enough to make an ungodly profit."

"What do you think his next move will be?"

"Lord, Putt, I don't know." Warren looked at his friend in blank surprise, "I hadn't thought. What will he do?"

"He'll call in Williams, his chief of laboratories, and tell him to go ahead on it. And Williams, being an intelligent though not highly scrupulous man, will decline without thanks, explaining to Nestor just why—it won't be safe. Nestor will either force him to do it, or get——I think he'll get Atkill, he's probably the next best man."

"He's the best, the best physicist in the world, and one of the most interesting men, but has the moral sense of a feudal baron. 'I want it. It's mine.' That's his one and only code. Nestor will probably be gypped. It's a shame a brilliant man like Atkill can't behave."

"He's second best—you're best and you know it. Now let's forget that and see what we want. You have the notes on your experiment?"

"Why no, they belonged to the University," exclaimed Warren.

"Nut! We don't know whether Nestor's got 'em or not. Wilson, you go to the University and try to buy them; up to a million I'll pay for them. And the remains of the apparatus that was wrecked." Putney ordered. Wilson nodded, and started off at once. Putney sat in silence for some time.

"I wonder—I wonder if Nestor might not try to get in here, and acquire some data?" asked Warren softly. "May I borrow your men for a while?"

"Go to it, Ran. What's the idea now?"

"Watch—and we may show you some new ideas." The physicist turned to the men around him. "Come on men, this is going to be war."

The rest of the staff had gathered, a score of men in all. To a man they were with Putney, and every one of that scientific staff were with the great physicist in his research. To them, the idea of the energy of matter was a fire to stimulate them to the utmost.

Outside the laboratory Warren surveyed the grounds with an appraising eye. The laboratory building stood on a low hill. Behind, rose ridge on ridge of the rolling New Jersey hills. The Kittatinny range off to the Northwest crowned the view with a green-blue ribbon. Below the large, concrete building was a series of smaller sheds and houses. The kitchen and mess-hall were set over a clear, bubbling spring; a little stream of water trickled down from it to the clear lake below.

The hillside itself was clear, but covered with out-cropping rocks. Behind the sheds and the main laboratory tall metal towers strode off across the hills to the super-power transmission line five miles away. A high metal fence surrounded the entire property.

"Our first job is to set up a number of burglar alarms, and a burglar catcher or two. Men, you all live here don't you? I have reason to suspect we aren't going to have a happy stay while we are developing this thing, so we're going to fix it so one can get in or get out again if they do enter, without our knowing it. Come on!"

For the rest of that day the men worked, while Wilson, with the supply-plane made numerous trips to and from New York and the surrounding towns, bringing food and other supplies. One of the things Putney ordered was a complete gasoline-driven power plant. The power line was too accessible, and since there had been no reason to believe it would fail he had never had an auxiliary plant.

The entire grounds of the laboratory were crossed and re-crossed with an endless chain of beams of ultra-violet light, and photoelectric detectors. A capacity bridge was attached to the metal fence, and several others set up in the grounds, making it impossible for anyone to approach them, without giving the alarm. Then the fence was wired, and it was possible to turn the current on either the power line or the power plant into it at any time.

It was night before they finished, and the hundreds of invisible beams stretched their fingers about. The grounds were equipped with searchlights that would automatically turn to the section from which any alarm came, and flood it with light. Three men were sent out to make an attempt to steal across the grounds, knowing perfectly the distribution of the beams, and with a careful map of the grounds. It could not be done. The beams could be avoided only by coming within range of the capacity bridges, and instantly a blinding glare flooded them, and the tortured shriek of a siren announced their failure.

Air attack likewise proved impossible, for again the capacitances were disturbed. "I think," said Warren with a broad smile, "that we are safe."

"Uhuh—Atkill came to see Nestor to-day," answered Putney.

"Then you were right again. Williams didn't like the job."

"When do you start work?"

"To-morrow—when I've had some sleep," replied Warren instantly. "Let's turn in."

After breakfast they settled down once more to the discussion. Wilson was present, his combined office of scientific assistant and stenographer making him useful. Wilson was a small, slightly greyed man, self-effacing and one of those persons who are merely useful. He had never had an original idea, and probably never would, but as a scientific amanuensis, he was invaluable.

"What apparatus are you going to need, Ran?" asked Putney. "That's the point to start on."

"To begin with, the remains of my old apparatus, and a dozen pencils, the integraph, several calculus books, and some tables of natural and ten-base logs. Also some reference books on field theories might help. In the meantime, I'm going to discuss the idea with you. Wilson, will you see if you can get those things together?"

"Yes, Dr. Warren. In the study?" At Warren's nod he set off at once.

"Now, Putt, this is the theory I was working on when the grand smash came. I firmly believe that it is a law of nature that matter Cannot be Destroyed. Nothing in this universe can possibly destroy it!"

Putney stared at him in amazement. "Wha—what happened then?"

"Matter was destroyed, and released its energy!" There was a twinkle in Warren's eyes as he replied.

"All right, I give up. What's the answer?"

"I said, and I believe, that matter can not be destroyed in this universe. The matter that was destroyed was not in this universe! That matter was suddenly hurled beyond the end of space, out of space altogether, beyond the fourth-dimensional surface of our three dimensions. This universe is a hollow fourth-dimensional hyper-sphere, and the universe as we know it is the surface of that sphere. Well, what happens if it escapes from that sphere altogether?"

"But—it can't!" objected Putney.

"But—if it did?" demanded Warren.

"It—it could—it couldn't exist! Good God man, is that the secret! It can't exist, it is automatically thrown into a condition that prohibits its existence!" Putney's incredulous eyes fixed themselves on Warren.

"Almost, but not quite. That's true to an extent, that's what would happen if I could project it completely out of all spaces, but the thing is, that instantly it were projected out of this universe, it would itself become the center of a new hyper-space. Mass in itself creates a space about it. Do you see my point?"

"Right."

"Then that can't be done. But I can project it into a space whose laws are such that the matter can't exist. And the point where that other space touches ours, there the two modify each other, and intercommunicate. Energy released in one can be tapped from the other. I threw my energy into the alien space, and it is destroyed to free energy. That energy comes back to this space, and is at once converted to such a form of energy as is capable of existence in this space. Do you see the operation?"

Putney's face was pale as he contemplated the titanic forces that worked on the bit of matter that had been annihilated in Warren's apparatus. Space! Space, the master of Forces and Energies, space, with its immutable and infrangible laws had done Warren's bidding, and brought him the prepared result! A bit of matter tossed to it! A digested and refined bit of energy thrown back in its stead.

"Right! But, Man, how can the thing be done, why, doesn't it slip off of itself? How did you know there would be such a space near—near the surface of our world, as would do that?"

"There doesn't have to be. I make that bit of space. Don't you see, Putt, it does slip through of itself, tries to build itself a new space, and perhaps does, but where the terrific forces I'm sending through with it are, even that other space of its creation is so affected as to be sharply curved. Remember, earth's gravity is leaking through too, and so is the intense magnetic and electrical force. That maintains the conditions I want—or did, for some lucky reason. I must know exactly what the forces were. They told me that when Blamen was hit, every meter froze, the pivots melted, the works were blown out by something. Even the great magnets I used were melted after a time. The increase in the power of the magnets must have been the reason for the rapid increase in the intensity of the radiation that I had a chance to notice.

"At any rate, I'm going to work on them now, and I think I'd better learn something. I had the world's luckiest break really. You know I was trying to disturb space, I thought I might succeed in transmuting that iron wire. I never expected to annihilate it. If it had gone up all at once—you would probably have been annihilated as well. Did you stop to think that if I had started the experiment, as I intended, I would have been killed instead of Blamen—or rather with him? I never could blame the old boy too much!"

Warren went to the study with Putney, and together they started the work on the field strengths and data they had, the effects they knew or imagined or had learned, and tried to make sense. Little by little the chips of darkness fell from the truth, and they began to perceive the facts.