‘A mile long, of course.
‘No. They have exactly the same number of points. Want me to prove it?
‘I’ll take your word for it. But I never studied that sort of maths.
‘All right. Take my word for it then. Neither size nor shape is any impediment to setting up a full, point-for-point correspondence between two spaces. Neither of the words is really appropriate. “Size” has to do with a space’s own inner structure, its dimensions in terms of its own unique constants. “Shape” is a matter which happens inside itself – or at least not inside our space – and has to do with how it is curved, open or closed, expanding or contracting.
Grimes shrugged. ‘It all sounds like gibberish to me.’ He returned to watching the cuckoo clock swing round and round its wheel
‘Sure it does,’ Waldo assented cheerfully. ‘We are limited by our experience. Do you know how I think of the Other World?’ The question was purely rhetorical. ‘I think of it as about the size and shape of an ostrich egg, but nevertheless a whole universe, existing side by side with our own, from here to the farthest star. I know that it’s a false picture, but it helps me to think about it that way.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Grimes, and turned himself around in the air. The compound motion of the clock’s pendulum was making him a little dizzy. ‘Say! I thought you turned off the caster?
‘I did,’ Waldo agreed, and looked where Grimes was looking. The deKalbs were still squirming. ‘I thought I did,’ he said doubtfully, and turned to the caster’s control board. His eyes then opened wider. ‘But I did. It is turned off.
‘Then what the devil-
‘Shut up!’ He had to think – think hard. Was the caster actually out of operation? He floated himself over to it, inspected it. Yes, it was dead, dead as the dinosaurs. Just to make sure he went back, assumed his primary waldoes, cut in the necessary circuits, and partially disassembled it. But the deKalbs still squirmed
The one deKalb set which had not been subjected to the Schneider treatment was dead; it gave out no power hum. But the others were working frantically, gathering power from -where?
He wondered whether or not McLeod had said anything to Granmps Schneider about the casters from which the deKalbs were intended to pick up their power. Certainly he himself had not. It simply had not come into the conversation. But Schneider had said something. ‘The Other World is close by and full of power!
In spite of his own intention of taking the old man literally he had ignored that statement. The Other World is full of power. I am sorry I snapped at you, Uncle Gus,’ he said
‘S all right.
‘But what do you make of that?
‘Looks like you’ve invented perpetual motion, son.
‘In a way, perhaps. Or maybe we’ve repealed the law of conservation of energy. Those de Kalbs are drawing energy that was never before in this world!
‘Hm-m-m!
To check his belief he returned to the control ring, donned his waldoes, cut in a mobile scanner, and proceeded to search the space around the deKalbs with the most sensitive pickup for the radio power band he had available. The needles never jumped; the room was dead in the wave lengths to which the deKalbs were sensitive. The power came from Other Space
The power came from Other Space. Not from his own beamcaster, not from NAPA’s shiny stations, but from Other Space. In that case he was not even close to solving the prob1cm of the defective deKalbs; he might never solve it. Wait, now – just what had he contracted to do? He tried to recall the exact words of the contract
There just might be a way around it. Maybe. Yes, and this newest cockeyed trick of Gramps Schneider’s little pets could have some very tricky aspects. He began to see some possibilities, but he needed to think about it
‘Uncle Gus-
‘Yes, Waldo?
‘You can go back and tell Stevens that I’ll be ready with the answers. We’ll get his problem licked, and yours too. In the meantime I’ve got to do some really heavy thinking, so I want to be by myself, please.