He stopped talking. Something fell to the floor at George's feet,
and he stopped to pick it up. He held it in his palm--a necklace of
flawless pearls, worth a small fortune. He held it in his hand, not
knowing what to do with it.
"That's what I mean," Arl said.
"Oh, it's beautiful," Myra cooed. "Is it for me, George? Where did you
get it?" Then she pouted. "It's not for--that Narka, is it? It's for
me, isn't it, George?"
"That's what I mean," Arl said again. "Narka cannot resist the impulse
to steal everything she likes in this dimension. She simply takes
what she likes, and I know several cases in which one of your three
dimensional men went to jail for a series of robberies committed by the
Queen."
"That's ridiculous," George said. "How can she steal so many things?"
Arl shook his head. "You're forgetting the relationship between the
three and four dimensional worlds again. Remember, it's like you and
that square on the table. How would you get a necklace out of that
square without crossing any of its lines?"
"Why--why, I'd simply lift the necklace up and then put it down on the
other side of one of the lines."
"Exactly. That's what Narka's doing. She sees what she likes, lifts
it up out of your three-dimensional existence, momentarily carries it
through the fourth dimension, and puts it down here. When she has all
she wants, she'll come for her booty, then I'm afraid she'll take me
home with her. Only she'll be very mad. She won't speak to me for a
week--she'll do other things, bad things. I wish you had never called
me, George."
Something went _plop_, and George saw a small velvet cushion on the
floor. Like a pin cushion. And pinned to it were a number of jeweled
brooches. George did not know too much about jewelry, but he didn't
have to be an expert to know that these were valuable pieces. Even if
he didn't know it himself, he could tell by the way Myra sighed. Myra
would not sigh at imitations.
* * * * *
George laughed. "Now I know how Ali Baba must have felt after he said
'Open, Sesamee.'"
Myra nodded, but she hardly heard him. She walked from one treasure to
the next, as each new one plunked down on the floor or the chairs or
the tables. She was running, soon, with excited little gasps, feeling
the jewels with her hands, caressing them, holding them to her throat
and letting them caress her, raising them to the window so she could
see the sun shine on them.
Arl said wearily, "I have seen this many times before. It's always
the same the first time. Narka collects the treasure and someone here
in this three-dimensional world sees the treasure come in. The result
is always the same. It's quite a sight the first time. Narka has
sufficient jewelry here to buy this city."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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