our brains and eyes, now, really pseudo-fourth-dimensional, are capable of seeing those
things as they actually are; but that our entities-intelligences-whatever you like-are still
three-dimensional and can neither comprehend nor describe them. We can grasp them
only very roughly by transposing them into our own three-dimensional concepts, and that
is a poor subterfuge that fails entirely to convey even an approximate idea. As for that
horizon-or lack of it-it simply means that this planet is so big that it looks flat. Maybe it is
flat in the fourth dimension-I don’t know!”
Both fell silent, staring at the weird terrain over which they were being borne at such an
insane pace. Along its right line above that straight watercourse sped the airship, a
shrieking arrow; and to the right of the observers and to left of them spread, as far as
the eye could reach, a flatly unbroken expanse of the ghostly, livid, weirdly self-luminous
vegetation of the unknowable hyperworld. And, slinking, leaping, or perchance flying
between and among the boles and stalks of the rank forest growth could be glimpsed
monstrous forms of animal life.
Seaton strained his eyes, trying to see them more clearly; but owing to the speed of the
ship, the rapidity of the animals’ movements, the unsatisfactory illumination, and the
extreme difficulty of translating at all rapidly the incomprehensible four-dimensional forms
into their three-dimensional equivalents, he could not even approximate either the size or
the appearance of the creatures with which he, unarmed and defenseless, might have to
deal.
“Can you make any sense out of those animals down there, Peg?” Seaton demanded.
“See, there’s one just jumped out of the river and seemed to fly into that clump of
bamboo-like stuff there. Get any details?”
“No. What with the poor light and everything being so awful and so distorted, I can hardly
see anything at all. Why -what of them?”
“This of ’em. We’re coming back this way, and we may have to come on foot. I’ll try to
steal a ship, of course, but the chance that we’ll be able to get one-or to run it after we
do get it-is mighty slim. But assuming that we are afoot, the more we know about what
we’re apt to go up against the better we’ll be able to meet it. Oh, we’re slowing down-
been wondering what that thing up ahead of us is. It looks like a cross between the
Pyramid of Cheops and the old castle of Bingen on the Rhine, but I guess it’s a city-it
seems to be where we’re headed for.”
“Does this water actually flow out from the side of that wall, or am I seeing things?” the
girl asked.
“It seems to-your eyes are all right, I guess. But why shouldn’t it? There’s a big archway,
you notice-maybe they use it for power or something, and this is simply an outfall . . .”
“Oh, we’re going in!” Margaret exclaimed, her hand flashing out to Seaton’s arm.
“Looks like it, but they probably know their stuff.” He pressed her hand reassuringly.
“Now, Peg, no matter what happens, stick to me as long as you possibly can!”
As Seaton had noticed, the city toward which they were flying resembled somewhat an
enormous pyramid, whose component units were themselves mighty buildings, towering
one above and behind the other in crenelated majesty to an awe-inspiring height. In the
wall of the foundation tier of buildings there yawned an enormous opening, spanned by a
noble arch of metaled masonry, and out of this gloriously arched aqueduct there sprang
the stream whose course the airship had been following so long. Toward that forbidding
opening the hypership planed down, and into it she floated slowly and carefully.
Much to the surprise of the Terrestrials, however, the great tunnel of the aqueduct was
not dark. Walls and arched ceiling alike glowed with the livid, bluish-violet ultra-light which
they had come to regard as characteristic of all hyperthings, and through that uncanny
glare the airship stole along. Once inside the tunnel its opening vanished-imperceptible,
indistinguishable from its four-dimensional, black-and-livid-blue background.
Unending that tunnel stretched before and behind them. Walls and watery surface alike
were smooth, featureless, and so uniformly and weirdly luminous that the eye could not
fix upon any point firmly enough to determine the rate of motion of the vessel-or even to
determine whether it was moving at all. No motion could be perceived or felt and the
time-sense had long since failed. Seaton and Margaret may have traveled in that gigantic
bore for inches or for miles of distance; for seconds or for weeks of hypertime; they did
not then and never did know. But with a slight jar the hypership came to rest at last upon
a metallic cradle which had in some fashion appeared beneath her keel. Doors opened
and the being holding the tridents, who had not moved a muscle during the, to the
Terrestrials, interminable journey, made it plain to them that they were to precede him
out of the airship. They did so, quietly and without protest, utterly helpless to move save
at the behest of their unhuman captor-guide.
Through a maze of corridors and passages the long way led. Each was featureless and
blank, each was lighted by the same eerie, bluish light, each was paved with a material
which, although stone-hard to the hypermen, yielded springily, as yields a soft peat bog,
under the feet of the massive Terrestrials. Seaton, although now restored to full vigor,
held himself rigorously in check. Far from resisting the controlling impulses of the trident
he sought to anticipate those commands.
Indeed, recognizing the possibility that the captor might be aware, through those
electrical connections, of his very ideas, he schooled his outward thoughts to complete
and unquestioning submission. Yet never had his inner brain been more active, and now
the immense mentality given him by the Norlaminians stood him in good stead. For every
doorway, every turn, every angle and intersection of that maze of communicating
passageways was being engraved indelibly upon his brain-he knew that no matter how
long or how involved the way, he could retain his orientation with respect to the buried
river up which they had sailed.
And, although quiescent enough and submissive enough to all outward seeming, his inner
brain was keyed up to its hi chest pitch, ready and eager to drive his muscles into furious
activity at the slightest lapse of the attention of the wielder of the mastering trident.
But there was no such lapse. The intelligence of the hyperman seemed to be
concentrated in the -;owing tips of the forceps and did not waver for an instant, even
when an elevator into which he steered his charges refused to lift the immense weight
put upon it.
A silent colloquy ensued, then Seaton and Margaret walked endlessly up a spiral ramp.
Climbed, it seemed, for hours, their feet sinking to the ankles into the resilient material of
the rock-and-metal floor, while their alert guardian floated effortlessly in the air behind
them, propelled and guided by his swiftly revolving tail.
Eventually the ramp leveled off into a corridor. Straight ahead, two aisles-branch half
right-branch half left-first turn left-third turn right-second doorway on right. They stopped.
The door opened. They stepped into a large, office-like room, thronged with the peculiar,
sea-horselike hypermen of this four-dimensional civilization. Everything was
indescribable, incomprehensible, but there seemed to be desks, mechanisms, and tier
upon tier of shelf-like receptacles intended for the storage of they knew not what.
Most evident of all, however, were the huge, goggling, staring eyes of the creatures as
they pressed in, closer and closer to the helplessly immobile bodies of the man and the
woman. Eyes dull, expressionless, and unmoving to Earthly, three-dimensional
intelligences; but organs of highly intelligible, flashing language, as well as of keen vision,
to their possessors.
Thus it was that the very air of the chamber was full of speech and of signs, but neither
Margaret nor Seaton could see or hear them. In turn the Earthman tried, with every
resource at his command of voice, thought, and pantomime, to bridge the gap-in vain.
Then strange, many-lensed instruments were trundled into the room and up to the
helpless prisoners. Lenses peered; multicolored rays probed; planimeters, pantographs,
and plotting points traced and recorded every bodily part; the while the two sets of
intelligences, each to the other so foreign, were at last compelled to acknowledge
frustration. Seaton of course knew what caused the impasse and, knowing the
fundamental incompatibility of the dimensions involved, had no real hope that
communication could be established, even though he knew the hypermen to be of high
intelligence and attainment.
The natives, however, had no inkling of the possibility of three-dimensional actualities.
Therefore, when it had been wade plain to them that they had no point of contact with
their visitors-that the massive outlanders were and must remain unresponsive to their
every message and signal-they perforce ascribed that lack of response to a complete